Sinejan Kılıç Buchina
Buchina uses topographic and political mapping to investigate her focus on issues of borders and displacement. In her work, she reconstructs the borders of unrecognized countries, de facto states, and contested regions, such as her homeland of Abkhazia, by re-evaluating the parameters of recognition, and the implications of constructing nations based on linguistic and political affiliations. Buchina questions the location, both geographical and conceptual, of the boundaries that shape and define identity. How can a nation be both a place that exists in a physical sense but be politically invisible? How does one define belonging to a country that does not have a postal system or currency, but a language, deep, oral history and indigenous traditions? Buchina uses the metaphor of mapping as an organism; languages vanishing from the earth as lakes dry out, a body losing limbs and organs where countries are divided and claimed after a conflict. Maps are believed to be objective, supplying firm data, despite the fact that borders are still shifting, forming and erasing nations. Using painting as her dominant medium, she also employs installation, photography and video into her repertoire, and combines traditional and contemporary materials. Exploring the dichotomy between abstract mapping composition, Buchina collects and utilizes the sentimental objects from these regions both organic and synthetic; rusted metal, live plants, and found objects and combines them with acrylic, ink, pastel and graphite.