Burcu Türker, born in Erlenbach, studied at the School for Fashion, Graphics and Design in Offenbach, Communication Design at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and Visual Communication and Illustration at the Kassel Art University, where she was a master student in the Illustration and Comic class with Hendrik Dorgathen.
In 2012 Burcu Türker co-founded the artist collective Die goldene Discofaust. She lives in Berlin.
There’s no fixing it anymore
Beneath the fireball, the city asphalt turns into desert dust, its deep shadows dancing sharply over the ground.
I’m losing the motivation
to be here in this demonstration, in this heat, on this Saturday.
What happened, happened.
Can’t forgive it.
Some things can’t ever be fixed again.
My enemy images are getting blurred.
I’m giving in to hopelessness, global warming and the Nazis.
I’m turning grey.
All the fight is going out of me.
It’s over.
We’re doomed.
Me and the 240,000 other people walking with me.
A sign sweeps a cool shadow over my face and, with its dusty breath, tells me to take courage.
In my work I concentrate on the aspect of reparation
Can you tell us about what you wanted to convey with this piece of artwork? What were some inspirations or ideas you wanted to consider when you were creating it?
My comic page is about despondency, about loss of hope, about sadness in the face of our own powerlessness, about anger, about inner harshness with regard to political mistakes, about racism and environmental damage that endanger everyone’s future and cannot be repaired.
The pool is a refreshing place in the warming world, but it is an unnatural source of water and stands for luxury. Without really having to touch the leaves, they are fished out of the water and packed in plastic bags until the water is clear again.
Why is reconciliation as a theme important to you?
In my work I concentrate on the aspect of reparation.
What are we fighting for? Who do we reach? Can we save anything at all? How can a future be saved if irreversible damage has happened in the past? With whom should I reconcile? Who will forgive? Me, for instance?
What was the creative process like in creating this artwork? (Do you map it out in a plan beforehand, do you work on text first and then illustration or vice versa? You can also talk about the medium or methods you use in creating the work.)
In this case I picked the idea from a short story I wrote some time ago after I had experienced a deep sense of hopelessness at a demonstration against right-wingers. It had been a red-hot day, and to endure, I fled from skyscraper shadow to skyscraper shadow.
So in this case the text was there first. However, in the process of finding the images I modified the text. This process is like a tennis match between text and image.
Normally, I work on my illustrations mainly in an analog way. For this comic page, however, I concentrated more on a digital collage-style realization. It's a mixture of watercolor drawings and digital techniques.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
My comic page is divided into two color universes, which contrast each other. They illustrate the heat and the relieving coolness that is found at the end of the last sentence and that allows for hope.
I drew the sketch for this page before the Corona crisis. I finished my comic in self-imposed quarantine. So in some sense this topic found its way into my story, too.
