A Stone from Erzurum

A Stone from Erzurum responds directly to a stoning during the 2023 election rallies. The artist paints and textures light styrofoam to mimic stone, embroidering a blood/flower-like motif in red thread and beads; she then cracks and crushes the surface to register impact.

At the center stands a child figure, pointing to the children injured in the incident. The “stone” oscillates between weapon and witness, while the silhouette holds the tension between vulnerability and endurance. Black stitched lines map fractures; red embroidery marks and sutures the wound.

The work foregrounds the slow insistence of handwork against the normalization of crowd violence and the bodily imprint of political rhetoric. At a palm-sized scale, the fragment invites holding yet resists it, translating a public assault’s legacy into a personal carrier of memory. It voices a demand for a public sphere where no one—especially children—is “stoned” for fanaticism or extremism.