An art event by Mehmet Aydoğdu at the Bedesten

By Heidi Trautmann

Turkish people have always had a tendency to migrate, especially towards the West as history tells us and in last century due to poverty and war situations for example in Cyprus. After WW II the economy in Western Europe changed rapidly and labour was urgently needed. In the early 1960s Turkish ‘guest workers’ arrived under a “Labour Export Agreement with Germany in 1961, followed by the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria in 1964, France in 1965 and Sweden in 1967.

This anniversary of 50 years – it is true from the Belgium point of view -  Mehmet Aydoğdu took as an opportunity to make aware of this fact again by an art event in Cyprus where he was born, that is in Karaman in 1958. His family moved to Belgium in 1970 and Mehmet was attending the Alleur State Lycee; he studied painting at the Liège Institute of Fine Arts and attended the Liège Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1977. He is still living in Belgium and is married to a Belgian lady. He was very much influenced by his grandparents in Karaman with respect to man, nature and God and later by the works of Salvador Dali. He says about his art: ‘I adapted the surrealistic style because it includes all living things in the world and goes beyond reality. I accept the existence of reality and its inevitable effects and want to carry the present time beyond reality and the world of imagination in a realistic way. I want to convert reality into a surrealistic arid mysterious philosophy.’

I went to the opening of the exhibition R/2 ( Roots & Road), which was set under the high patronage of HE Dr. Dervis Eroğlu,  at the beautiful Bedestan building and I had the opportunity to speak to the artist being introduced to him by the well-known Turkish Cypriot artist Aylin Örek, who has met him during her stay in Belgium and has organised the exhibition for him here in Nicosia.

It is always a mystic experience for any event taking place at the Bedestan and it somehow supported the artistic statements by Mehmet Aydoğdu in form of video installations, some small sculptures such as a small Berlin bear in an antique book, and small paintings, collages and prints but if I may say the truth I did not find any clues that reminded of Turkish migration or the words he said to me about Roots and Roads and I was under the impression that others were at a loss as well.

However it is, European Turks as they are called have become integrated into the countries they have chosen to live in and have brought much of their culture to their new homelands in form of music, arts and crafts and not to forget the knowledge of Turkish cuisine which we all have come to appreciate if it is done the traditional ways.