In the Video Performance "Mélange" the artist sits in a costume from the 18th century and an oversized head of hair on a huge pile of charcoal ash. The pile of ash originates from wood, that is burned from the lush trees in the garden of the Tarbya Culture Academy in Istanbul. The place has an almost private atmosphere and may appear like a romantic scene in the idyll of Tarabya. One could even say, that the place wins a surreal atmosphere with the artist in her red shimmering dress. It feels like a fairytale in a mixture of a thousand and one night and Grimm's Cinderella.

She sits there and starts in sysiphus work to crush ash initially in a mortar and then in an antique coffee grinder made of bronze and finally she uses a peppermill to refine the ash. The artist takes the powder like ash to her face with a shaving brush.

Here, the artist mixes two elements: the black of ashes as a black powder with the white powder of her face. It makes a mélange, that permits multi-layered interpretations. It seems first of all, that the artist tries to turn around the normal way to powder oneself in order to become more white. Here the effect is just the opposite. Nezaket Ekici gives an answer to the question if only white is to be recognized beautiful.

Antique coffee grinder, peppermill, mortal, shaving brush, wood ash, costume, white powder

HD mp4 16:9 colour, sound

Duration of the Video: 8:08 min.

Camera, Editing, and Video stills: Branka Pavlovic

Sound: Janja Loncar