In My Practice, the Idea Comes First

There have been centuries and moments in which making art has become more difficult. I think the 21st century is one of those periods. First of all, as an artist of this century, how do you feel?

Burcu Yıldız:Every period has had its own difficulties for artists. In the past, authority over art was exercised largely through royal courts, the aristocracy, religion, politics, and academies. Today, with the digital age, everyone has their own publishing platform. People can present themselves directly, articulate who they are, and build a sphere of influence around themselves.

But I think another kind of authority has emerged in its place. People often present themselves not as they are, but through the personas they want to project. In this way, the old institutional authorities are increasingly being replaced by individual yet artificial forms of authority. Art, too, is sometimes read less through the work itself than through the persona constructed by the artist.

At the same time, I think the 21st century offers artists far more material than the past did. Particularly for an artist whose practice centers on human behavior, there is an enormous field to examine, dissect, and open up to confrontation. Information circulates at extraordinary speed; in an instant, we can multiply it, whitewash it, or contaminate it. Unfortunately, we seem to be more skilled at contaminating it.

So, as an artist working in this period, I feel as though I am operating both within an immense field of material and in rather polluted waters. For me, the real challenge is to preserve the density of thought, my independence, and the genuine relationship I have with my work amid this overwhelming pressure of information, imagery, and visibility. In my art, I also try to dissect human behavior and place a mirror before people in which they might see their own reality.

Being a conceptual contemporary artist feels to me like a highly versatile and boundless mode of creation. How do you think this concept is perceived in Türkiye?

Burcu Yıldız:I see conceptual art as a field that is somewhat misunderstood. In Türkiye, people often begin by asking, “How was it made?” I begin by asking, “Why was it made?” There is a significant difference between those two ways of looking.

In conceptual art, the medium is not the starting point. It can be painting, photography, text, performance, fabric, or an intervention in public space. The starting point is the idea.

I choose whichever medium an idea requires. I do not begin by thinking, “I am a painter, so I must express this through painting.”

In Türkiye, technical mastery and conceptual depth are sometimes treated as alternatives to one another. I do not see them as competing forces. A very well-executed painting can, and should, carry a strong idea; an equally powerful idea can be articulated through different media. What interests me is the space in which the two nourish one another.

I am not an artist who is loyal to a medium; I am an artist who is loyal to the idea.

In the works or moments you bring into being, there can sometimes be large statements, and sometimes statements that only become clear over time. How does an artist decide what they want to communicate?

Burcu Yıldız:My starting point is usually a question that refuses to leave me alone, or an issue that remains unresolved in my mind. Before there is any technique or form, I first engage with that question.

This is why the idea comes first in my practice. But that does not mean that I know the final outcome of the work from the outset. I think through making. The idea continues to develop as I work, as the piece takes shape, and as it encounters the viewer. Especially in my interactive works, the viewer’s behavior becomes part of the production process.

For example, in Silent Fabric, a work I placed in public space, I laid a completely white piece of fabric on the ground. The fabric was an abstract representation of perception. The fact that people walked around it rather than stepping on it made visible how perception can direct our behavior even when there is no visible obstacle. Through the viewer’s response, the work expanded its own meaning. This process led me to reconsider the ways in which we are guided in everyday life through words, texts, and constructed perceptions.

For the same reason, I do not choose a medium at random. I always ask myself, “In what form can this thought truly exist?” I chose fabric for Silent Fabric because it is mobile, fragile, and capable of changing form. Perception is not fixed either; it shifts, bends, and transforms according to the conditions in which it exists.

In some of my works I use objects, in others fabric, and in some I work directly with text. When I choose text, I do not want the viewer merely to read it; I want them to hear the sentence internally and direct the question back at themselves. That is why, in Please Choose Your Label., the text itself was not simply a carrier of the idea but a direct part of the work.

I take seriously whatever unsettles me, intrigues me, or refuses to leave me alone. As for how far a sentence can grow, that is decided not by the artist, but by the work, by time, and by the relationship it establishes with the viewer.

When art truly makes contact, it has a disruptive power. I do not think that disruption is always negative; it can also be transformative. How do you use art from your own perspective?

Burcu Yıldız:I use art not to persuade the viewer to accept a particular thought, but to slow down the answers we give out of habit. Much of the time, we live without noticing not how we think, but how we have become accustomed to thinking.

For me, the disruptive aspect of art does not necessarily lie in producing harsh or disturbing images. What interests me is the moment when a person unexpectedly encounters their own thought. That encounter can be very quiet, or it can be unsettling. But that feeling is not something I impose; it is the result of the person’s relationship with themselves.

I cannot control what someone standing before a work will feel or think. One person may ignore the same work, another may love it, another may reject it, while someone else may notice something about themselves that they never expected to see. What interests me is precisely this uncertainty.

For me, the role of a work is not to provide an answer, but sometimes to make visible again something whose answer we assume we already know.

This is where art’s transformative power begins. A work may not change the world on its own, but it can momentarily alter the measure, boundary, or habit through which a person looks at the world. If that small shift continues even after the encounter with the work has ended, then I believe the art has truly made contact.

Finally, I would like to know how you spend your time when you are on your own. What are you interested in? And beyond that, what can we expect from you in the period ahead?

Burcu Yıldız:I live a simple life. I wake up very early. I like to write; writing is how I first organize my thoughts. I enjoy walking, I always have a book with me, and usually a podcast in my ears. I do not particularly like being tied to a single place. Whenever I have the opportunity, I choose to live in different countries. Moving from one place to another gives me not only new environments, but also new ways of seeing.

I like observing people. Small details that go unnoticed in everyday life can sometimes become the starting point for a new work. The more I observe human behavior, the more I notice that even the most serious moments carry their own humor. That is why I do not see seriousness and humor as opposites. Often, the strongest humor contains a serious thought, while the strongest thought contains a subtle sense of humor.

Spending time with my daughter is my favorite thing. Children do not look at the world through habit. They approach everything as though they were seeing it for the first time. I think that is one of the things that keeps creativity alive.

Every day, I continue to write, think, and make. In time, some of these will become new works.

Thank you for your questions. It felt less like an interview and more like we were thinking together and having a conversation.