SWEETSHIRT (“MY BOSS IS TURKISH”)
2002-ongoingThe Sweetshirt project confronts stereotypes related to nationality, origin and religion and in particular related to the use of the word “Turkish”, inspired by its heavily loaded with social, historical and political meanings in a country like Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, etc. The aim of the project is by using various means of presentation and action, the social and mass media structures, for advertising the sentence “My Boss Is Turkish” to raise emotions and send messages that re-energize personal, social, political and historical issues.
Feelings about the messages, which the project communicates, were sometimes impulsively influenced by the “local climate” they were born, and this causes quite interesting geographical fragmentation of the opinions. The Sweetshirt project invites multiple, may be even contradictory readings and at the same time takes no position and thus allows them to coexist and complete each other leaving space for dialogue.
Veronika Tzekova
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“The project by Veronika Tzekova is conceived as an advertisement campaign for a new product just like any other. The candy-pink T-shirts printed with the slogan My Boss is Turkish appeal to one of the many paradoxes of our time – the national identity and the cliché that go together with it around the world. Big deal that somebody’s boss is Turkish! On the other side though, to be Turkish in the world of today is not the same as to be Belgian, Korean, or Egyptian. Just like it is one thing to be Turkish in Turkey, and quite another thing to be Turkish elsewhere around the world. It’s not easy to be Turkish in Germany or Europe as a whole. It is quite something to be Turkish on the Balkans, where ancient history does not let go of its grip on the closest neighbors, while all sorts of territorial and national claims from150-200 years ago might turn any moment into an aggressive and really dangerous affair. The Turkish culture, language, cuisine are inseparable from the Balkan specificity. However, they remain clearly “Turkish”, with the often-obvious connotations of otherness and near hostility. When in Bulgaria one says that a man (in particular) is a Turk (or behaves like one) it usually means that the guy in question is acting in a macho or even sexist way, and is quite aggressively jealous, for instance...
Outside of the traces of the history of ages of Turkish domination, the current regional relations award this nation a specific place. Being the largest neighbor, a NATO member country, a touristic paradise and at the same time the main source of the across-the-borders “suitcase economy”, contemporary diverse Turkey is an exception to many rules.
Clothing is a powerful tool in our world and the way of dressing is recognized as “statement of intent”. After the trendy wave of patriotic logos and patterns, Veronika Tzekova is offering some T-shirts straight out of “cultural anthropology”.”
Iara Boubnova, catalog IN DEN SCHLUCHTEN DES BALKAN, Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel
30. August – 23. November 2003