Oikos
Mardin, Turkey
Exhibition, 2022
Oikos, 2022 is an instalation developed as a part of the 5. Mardin Biennale curated by Adwait Singh.
Intervention with 30 stools made from repurposed MDF wood, papier-mâché, and flower seeds, 32 cm x 32 cm x 45 cm each.
Oikos, created by Ömer Pekin for the 5th Mardin Biennial, is an installation that consists of 30 stools dispersed across the venues in the service of enabling other artworks. Composed of repurposed wood and one of the most under-appreciated materials for furniture design: recycled paper, the stools contain flower seeds as a symbolic promise of blooming futurities once the time comes for these utilitarian objects to retire.
Titled Oikos, the Ancient Greek word for home, the stools are there to host, move, bring together, wear off and finally to metamorphose. Envisioned as a counter response to contemporary hostile architecture, the stools offer themselves up in hospitality despite their modestly accommodating form.
Exploring the endless ways the future can be reimagined through the interaction of human and object, Oikos aims to remind us of the ancient perception of ownership as the responsibility to circulate, rather than selfish claiming and fixing of property. Throughout the course of the Biennial and beyond, the sharing and utilization of these stools will advance the imperative for collective communion and action in the age of the Capitalocene. The work revolves around the notions of ‘the guest’ and ‘the host’ as well as their specific allocation across the human / nature divide overseen by capitalism, with nature being the resource and human, the extracting sovereign.
With an aim to pose questions on the responsibilities of all actors involved, the existing social relationships, and the modalities of social welfare, Oikos illuminates how pragmatism and the hegemony of possession can be subverted in our ergonomic and systemic imaginings. A direct intervention into the support and sustainability structures of the biennial, the work invites a discussion on alternative ways to give, receive and reciprocate against the background of economic precarity.
All production and commercial rights for the limitless edition of Oikos Stools as well as proceeds from their sales have been offered as a gift to the Mardin Biennial in a singular reversal of institutional care.