Tavsan Kani

Tavşan Kanı (Rabbit Blood), originally conceived for the Akaretler Row Houses in Istanbul, is now exhibited at Schloss Biesdorf in Berlin, a space that, like Akaretler, resonates with histories of home, migration, and labor.

The installation features Turkish tea glasses with their characteristic tulip shape—a design that first appeared in the 19th-century painting Samovar—symbolizing an ancient tradition and a cultural bridge between East and Europe. These glasses, carefully arranged on trestles and various surfaces, evoke Turkish hospitality and the ritual of tea as an act of welcome.

The title Tavşan Kanı refers to the intense and fleeting red color of freshly brewed tea, serving as a metaphor for the fragility and constant transformation of traditions, identities, and architecture. The piece plays with the inversion and intertwining of cultural roles, especially through activations at the Villa Siemens—former workers’ housing in Berlin—where the artist offered tea to visitors, inviting reflection on mobility, belonging, and the tension between the local and the global.

In this way, Tavşan Kanı creates a fragile hospitality landscape charged with aesthetic tension, connecting stories of migration, labor, and home in Istanbul and Berlin.

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