Bed Linens
How Closeness is Created

• Text zum Nachlesen

  Bed Linens about Themselves

  We are a pillowcase and a bedspread, but people simply refer to us together as „bed linens“. We belong together, and something would not be right if we were separated. And that‘s why we understand exactly what our owner misses.

  You must know: She was politically persecuted in her home country and had to flee from there. She was able to take us with her, but her mother had to stay. Although they are in contact and talk a lot with each other, it‘s only on the phone or through screens – only at a great distance.

  However, it has now been shown that we, although we are just bed linens, can do something about it. We didn‘t even know that we have this ability, but apparently we provide her with special comfort and even create a kind of connection to her mother. That‘s why we are not used in the usual way, but simply carefully kept.

  You must know, we were a wedding gift, from her mother, and that‘s why we now seem to carry something of her within us. Something that is now with us in proximity – or that is there. We can‘t describe it better, but we will continue to fulfill this task until hopefully it is no longer necessary.

  Zusatzinfos

  The owner of these bed linens is currently unable to return to her home country, Turkey. She is among those who have been held responsible by the Turkish government for the coup attempt in 2016 or classified as oppositional – parts of the Turkish military had attempted to overthrow the Turkish government. As part of the subsequent wave of dismissals and arrests, the lender was also forced to flee.

  The „Madonna with Jesus and John the Baptist as a Boy“ to the Bed Linens

  I am an oil painting from the 17th century depicting Mary with the infant Jesus – in a very specific situation: Mary holds her child in her arms and breastfeeds him. I emphasize this because it‘s a particularly intimate form of closeness between mother and child – and yet so natural and inherent.

  For that reason, I can also understand very well the difficult situation you are talking about.

  And then I see something else – and I must say, it was beyond my horizon that even pillowcases and bedspreads are capable of this: This kind of closeness you create seems very familiar to me for another reason – that is: not only because I depict two people who are close to each other, but also because I am simply a picture.

  Because actually, physically, Mary and the child are not there. They are far away, somewhere, who knows where – if at all. But still they are here – and that‘s because I bring them close to those who look at me. That‘s something we pictures always do. We are very good at doing that. What I find even more remarkable, though, is that you two, pillowcase and bedspread, in your own way, create something very similar.

  Do you also have such an object? Something that connects you with a loved one? And that also manages to create this special kind of closeness?