Central to the installation is Bulut’s playful reference to the Tesseract Cube: a calculation used in physics to go beyond matter into the fourth dimension. Here, multiple cubes – handcrafted with Turkish terracotta clay and featuring reflective surfaces on two sides – hang carefully in a sequence creating the form of a single large-scale cube. In curation, taking her inspiration from Kafka’s renowned metamorphosis of the cockroach, Melek is using the cube to transform the room. This is a distinct intervention, transporting visitors from a physical dimension into a metaphysical space.

The use of terracotta clay – an intrinsically primal material – simultaneously taps into the visitor’s inner core as well as the collective human memory, while the scene-setting of the room creates the effect of spacelessness and timelessness. Only the intuitive response of the visitor remains: encouraging one to reach inwards and connect with their core memory.

With ‘The Recursion Project’, Melek Zeynep Bulut has created a poetic ritualistic experience: a repetition of sounds and forms blur the visitor’s boundaries, stripping them of both their form and reality, and creating an illusion that takes them into another dimension.