Sinejan Kılıç Buchina

Sinejan Buchina is an artist and arts educator, working in both New York and Istanbul. She holds an MA from City University in New York (2019), a BFA from Marmara University in Istanbul (2007). Buchina has exhibited work internationally in: Synesthesia, NY (2020), Walter Meade Gallery, NY (2020), Amos Eno Gallery, NY (2019), The Every Women Biennial, NY (2017), When Black Swallows Red at the La Mama La Galleria, NY (2018), Arts Depot, London, United Kingdom (2019), Brighthill New York, NY (2017), Tattoo Circus, London, United Kingdom

(2019).

She is a recipient of several awards, including the Connor Travel Fellowship, granted to present her academic paper in International Conference at the Madrid Carlos iii University; the Light Space & Time Award for excellence in painting; a P.E.O Education Grant; as well as President's Fund for Excellence scholarship. She has also participated in the following residencies: Critical Feedback Program Trestle Art Space, Brooklyn, New York (2019), Twin Oaks Residency, Treadwell, New York (2018), Node Center for Curatorial Studies, Berlin, Germany (2012). 

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.