with Serhat Altan
The video is in three sections; in the first a poem, Mustafa Kamal’s Cart by Namik Kemal, is read out in Turkish. It describes an event that takes place as munitions are being transported by ox cart. In the middle section the poem is translated into English. Finally it is read out in English.
As the poem moves from one language to another we see three different takes of an imported bench in a UK furniture warehouse. The bench has also shifted across time and cultures.
Fabricated from an ox yoke and the wheels from an ox cart, it has become exoticised, fossilised and maybe tragicomic. Throughout the video the sound of heavy traffic outside the warehouse establishes the presence of the contemporary western equivalent of the ox cart.