In writing about Bucak\u2019s work, people have been quick to point out how the journey of the roses mirrors the perilous journeys of the millions of migrants, by land and sea, to find safe ground on foreign land. The delays, mishandling, and destruction of the vulnerable plants further parallels the plight of migrants who entrusted their imperilled fortunes to the goodwill of strangers and to a complex and often inhospitable foreign bureaucracy. Many interpret the project as a complicated means of begging a simple question: can one be re-rooted on alien soil? Although such metaphoric parallels exist between the journey of the plant and that of the migrant, Bucak\u2019s work is more than a sophisticated gimmick to draw attention to the fate of the migrant, which she has already documented with great empathy in several other projects, including De Silencio<\/em> and I Must Say A Word About Fear.<\/em> Rather, her project arises from a thorough examination of the role and function of borders as transnational lines via a continued engagement with themes of migration, displacement, and war. In the past decade, she has received grants and participated in residencies that have allowed her to travel to contentious borders around the world, between Turkey and Armenia, between Turkey and Syria, between Mexico and the United States, and between Morocco and Western Sahara. As a dual citizen, holding passports from Turkey and Italy, she has the privilege of mobility, enabling her to investigate this theme without restrictions. That being said, Bucak, who was born in Iskenderun, a town in southern Turkey close to the Syrian border, has developed a multidisciplinary practice characterized by repeated daring acts of courage. Whether she is compromising her own safety by documenting the U.S.\u2013Mexico border or risking jail time by calling out the propaganda and censorship of the Turkish press, Bucak\u2019s art practice is defined by poetic gestures of transgression aimed at revealing the complex mechanisms that hinder human freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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So as to find the strength to see<\/em>, installation view and detail, Fondation Merz, Turin, 2018.
Photo: Renato Ghiazza, courtesy of the artist, Pi Artworks, London & Alberto Peola Gallery, Turin <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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And men turned their faces from there<\/em>, installation view, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence,2017.
Photo: Jesse Banks III, courtesy of the artist, Pi Artworks, London & Alberto Peola Gallery, Turin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Before the war, the cultivation and processing of the Damask rose was a multi-million-dollar industry. But growing the plant is arduous and entails intense manual labour; production rapidly dropped with the outbreak of the war, benefiting other producing regions in France, Morocco, Iran, and Turkey.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n On another level, Bucak\u2019s work also addresses how war affects the landscape of a place. The Damask rose was once a common sight in and around Damascus and its province, gracing gardens, balconies, and roadsides. It was a symbol for residents of Syria\u2019s capital. Interviewed for an article titled \u201cSyria\u2019s Famous Damask Rose Withered By War\u201d published in The Times of Israel<\/em>, Abu Bilal, a former owner of a rose oil distillery in the region that closed down in 2011, remembers how \u201cDouma [ville de la Ghouta orientale] used to smell of roses, but now it reeks of gunpowder.\u201d4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Maher Al Mounes, \u201cSyria\u2019s famous damask rose withered by war,\u201d The Times of Israel, May, 17, 2016, www.timesofisrael.com\/syrias-famous-damask-rose-withered-by-war\/<\/a>. <\/span>There is also something about this project that recalls the displacement of plants during colonial expeditions and how specimens from all over the world were collected and cared for in ostentatious botanical gardens across Europe in the late eighteenth century and through the nineteenth century. Notably, we can think of the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew and its significant role in the development of economic botany and ethnobotany, two precursor fields of biological and agricultural engineering. In fact, most European-grown roses derive from the Damask rose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During a conversation I had with the artist, we discussed a potential and ultimate stage of the project in which the cuttings would be returned to Syria, where they would be replanted in their place of origin at the end of the war. In tracing the trajectory of the flower from the Middle East to Europe, there was an attempt on Bucak\u2019s part to underline a historical succession of violence, one connected to the heritage of botany. But there is hope in her project via the promise of reconciliation, of homecoming. And by way of its rich baggage of references, Damascus Rose raises important questions related to complex notions of belonging, of homeland, of origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In speaking about Fatma Bucak\u2019s Damascus Rose, the English art critic Philomena Epps wrote, \u201cIt is not didactic, but a symbolic gesture, working in the gaps between the margins of the political and the poetic.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - Epps, \u201cFatma Bucak.\u201d<\/span>Through a poetic act of transgression, Bucak demonstrates how the human experience of war is entangled with environmental considerations and the social politics of agriculture and food production. Without diminishing the human experience of migration or finger-pointing, she promotes a wider perspective on transnational conflicts that offers a vital way to see through the troubled times ahead.<\/p>\n
In the context of Damascus Rose, Bucak examines how war and transnational conflict affect the economy of a place. The cultivation of the Damask rose in Syria and its distribution in Europe have been largely documented since the twelfth century.1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - This is proven by multiple mentions most notably in William Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnet CXXX.<\/span> As a consequence of the civil war in Syria, the fertility of the country\u2019s soil has deteriorated and fields have been abandoned, and with this the loss of cultivation of several vegetables and crops. Since the beginning of the war in 2011, agriculture in Syria has declined to a near apocalyptic level.2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - In 2015, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas eval- uated the level of food security in Syria and established that the situation was perilous to the extent that a request was placed to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault for samples of wheat, barley, and grass to replace seeds damaged in Aleppo during the war.<\/span>. Bucak remembers reading an article published in 2014 \u2014 three years into the war \u2014 that stated that seventy percent of the production of Damask roses had been destroyed. She explained, \u201cI wanted to approach the subject in my own way, starting with the soil. What is the process of bringing something from Damascus to another country, and trying to cultivate it?\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - Philomena Epps, \u201cFatma Bucak: Finding the Strength to See,\u201d Elephant, March 18, 2018,<\/span>The Damask rose has played an important role in the economy of its country of origin. It has been used in the production of essential oils adopted by high perfumery, as an ingredient in cleaning products, and in the food industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n