The evening of March 26th was an ordinary winter evening cold enough to justify the fireplace to be on. The time though was strangely tangible almost something you could catch in the air if you were fast. I was at home in a room which served as a studio before I moved to my current studio. This was the first evening of the stay at home regulations in Boulder. I found a brown envelop with some prints we had purchased more than a year ago from Japan, which was barely opened since then. I had the time now that we were going to be home for an unknown period of time.
The next few weeks were about seeking new ways to disturb the isolation we were in. I started to communicate with my high school friends more often through WhatsApp, talking about life, short stories and movies. My husband started to have calls with his group every week. With their wine glasses in hand enjoying their connectedness while making the rest of us suffer with their loud laughters. I started to have family gatherings with my mother, sister and brother and their families – each of us as one little square on the iPhone screen.
With this new feeling of connectedness and the desire to be connected with others, I started making drawings of people, 30 of them. Then I connected each drawing to another by a reflective yarn. To me the yarn symbolizes the invisible threads that connect us. These invisible threads become visible during when we experience similar feelings in response to uncertainty, lack of control and this perceived slowness of time. At the moment my Connected installation is on display at the entrance gallery at House of Serein.
Belgin Yucelen, multidisciplinary artist and founder of House of Serein