Shifting Symbols

I love the nazar boncuğu, also known as the evil eye. A famous symbol of protection that looks evil right in the eye and says, “Not today.”

The nazar is popular in many parts of the world, and one place it is particularly loved is Turkey. If you visit Turkey, you’ll see nazars embedded in concrete, hanging above doors in homes and businesses, strung in multiples on trees, sold in souvenir shops (in every variety you can imagine), pinned on babies, made into earrings, pendants, rings, bracelets, and anklets. You can understand that the nazar is a deeply rooted cultural symbol.

I was one of those babies with a nazar pinned to me, and as I grew up, I was in and out of Turkish homes in Sydney, Australia that had their own decorative nazars. When I lived on my own for the first time, I decorated my home with nazars too, and ever since, I’ve seen it as a symbol of love that brings me closer to a culture and community I cherish and feel such warmth in. And yet, even with all this closeness, a part of me has always wondered, what does it mean to belong?

I can say that a lifetime growing up between two worlds has always led me into deep reflection and contemplation about how we belong and don’t belong to culture. What are the indicators? Is it language, the way you look, the bloodline you carry, how familiar you feel, the cultural practices you keep, the food you make? Is knowing one’s culture a big part of knowing oneself?

There has always been a shifting for me. I move in and out of identifying with these indicators; they shift as I shift, amongst people, in different places and spaces. What I describe here might sound like discomfort, and at times, it has been, but there is comfort in the knowing and not knowing, too.

In 2016, I made a video artwork that I believe was the first time I could accurately share a visual on my feelings and experience of belonging and not belonging. The video is called Dinle, which in Turkish means listen. The scene is a wintry street in Istanbul, very ordinary, people going about their day, shopping, getting on buses, smoking on the street. The audio plays dialogue between two men speaking. I transcribed all I understood of the conversation, leaving visible gaps in the subtitles where I didn’t understand what was being said. It turns out I only really understood about 15% of the entire conversation.