Artist residency with Merve Ünsal invited by Maria Andersson
Merve Ünsal is an artist who lives and works in Istanbul and Santa Cruz. She works on methods of tuning in, thinking through the media of radio transmission, sound, photography, video, performance, and site-specific installations.
In 2022, Ünsal launched Conversations with Weather Transmissions in Santa Cruz, California, in response to frequent atmospheric rivers and the climate crisis. By interweaving written dialogues, commentary, and field recordings into dry weather radio broadcasts, she transformed routine reports into site-specific radio dramas. The project's recent rendition in Ayvalık, Turkey, a key border crossing for refugees traveling to Lesbos, Greece, uses local weather data to unpack complex geopolitical realities and human migration. Through this format, specific weather reports serve as a tool to unravel broader social, environmental, and regional histories.
As Merve Ünsal and Maria Andersson both explore sound as a medium of urban, historical, and social attunement, at NKF, Conversations with Weather Transmissions emerges as a new interface of shared and implicit knowledges. During the residency, the two artists will arrange a public performance.
Merve Ünsal: https://www.merveunsal.com
Maria Andersson: www.mariaandersson.net