kaÅŸ monument
“Instead of monuments, where only the formal manifestations of the person or event to be remembered are only watched and which turn into a decorative element of the city over time, the monument that makes the public an active participant of the victory, heroism or the pain experienced, transferring the social memory by helping them experience it, allowing physical participation in the urban space, allowing for new sharing, preparing the ground for questioning and reminding people of the nature of which they are a part of will help the current codes of art to be processed correctly, shift the ideas we have on memory and remembering to a new axis of sensitivity, and prevent unconscious practices carried out on the urban and spatial planes.”
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The metaphor of a sinking ship is symbolically depicted with the profiles used in the monument design, and the water element in the design is used to support this metaphor. The gradual thinning of the profiles strengthens the metaphor of the sinking of the ship and the visual experience of a wreckage. Two metal panels rising slowly in the middle of the shipwreck (which is expressed in an abstract way with profiles) and the slit created by a rising ramp between them, symbolizes the penetration of a cannonball into a ship and the sinking of the ship in water. The plates next to this slit represent our two heroes. The two plates that are getting closer to each other and the broken reflective surfaces used on the inner surface of the plates will make the visitors experience the destructiveness of the war with a catastrophic effect.
At the same time, it is aimed to convey to the visitors the chaotic effect of the war and what the soldiers experienced when the cannonball hit the ship with the help of these broken/fragmented mirrors on the inner surface of the plates. This chaotic effect is strengthened by the fact that the visitor sees his body deformed and fragmented with the endless number of reflections in the broken mirrors opposite each other while walking on the ramp. Considering the fact that the ramp keeps getting narrower, the rusty steel corten used on the floor and thousands of deformed reflections, the destruction and difficulties caused by the war can be felt greatly by the visitor. The “olive tree”, which welcomes the visitors at the end of the ramp, just as they reached the end of these metaphorical road, symbolizes victory, peace and freedom. The olive tree, as a symbol of life, is positioned in the center of the monument as a contrast to the chaotic and destructive side of the war experienced seconds ago by the visitor, aiming for a universal message. The design of the monument, emphasizes the glorious side of the victories achieved in our history, as well as the hard road to independence, reminding the successes of the heroes of KaÅŸ, transferring them to the future and making these heroes visible. While doing this, the monument is not only a sculpture that can be seen and watched, but also an interactive monument that allows the users experience, includes them and creates a complete composition.