sea/see/saw

About

This year Pera Museum is celebrating its 10th anniversary. To commemorate this celebration, the museum commissioned Canadian artists Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett to create a special and inspiring artwork for the museum’s façade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJSLcFWf9n4

Couched in the historic quarter of Tepebaşı, Beyoğlu neighborhood the impressive museum building was originally conceived as the Bristol Hotel – originally designed by Greek architect Achilleas Manussos in the late 19th century. In 2005, the building was renovated preserving the exterior façade.

Conceived in response to Pera Museum’s historic façade for the cultural space’s 10th anniversary, sea/see/saw invites viewers to re-examine a familiar space through a new lens. sea/see/saw’s use of lenses playfully speaks to changes in perception, celebrating Pera Museum’s contribution to Istanbul’s cultural landscape, with an eye focused on the future. Constructed from 10,000 eyeglass lenses, the installation intends to mirror the dynamic and shimmering surface of the Golden Horn, and introduces movement to the otherwise static structure, as drawn by the wind. Built from used glasses that merge to create a simple, geometric form, sea/see/saw invites viewers to engage in a momentary shift of perspective.

If eyes are “windows to the soul,” how do lenses revise our vision of the world around us? Do our former accessories carry faint ghosts of those who used them? As the materiality of the installation becomes apparent, the watchers become the watched, and this spectacle of spectacles takes on another subtext–as an icon for collective vision, compound perspectives, and the power of collaborative sight.