Old Friends When you encounter an old friend, you know it almost immediately. A sudden smile appears on your face from the very first glance. That feeling lingers for a while, following you until you finally acknowledge the familiarity between you. You search their eyes, the tip of your tongue, for a story, but you cannot remember it. You turn back and look again, and once more you find it there, in their gaze—the story whose beginning you cannot remember. And because you cannot remember, you drift away, lost in the distance. And sometimes, you find each other in being lost in the distance. You are both so lost that there is nowhere else to go. You find each other somehow, some way, and you know what that is. That is how it happens when old friends meet. Someone once told me that, according to a Tibetan Buddhist belief, dogs may have been human in their past lives. They are silent witnesses to life, always surrounding and always watching our days in life. Sometimes they watch the vast horizons or children playing as if there were no difference between the two. I believe that we share stories with them, and they share stories with us. And perhaps we finally remember the story when we look into their eyes. Old friends Pınar Kayar Gesso, oil and pigment on a found piece of linen, 500x160, 2026

The Pebbles The studio ritual making of pebbles with the remnants of the day began as a series in 2020. Combining leftover ceramic dust and collection of winter ashes from the stove at the studio, shaping them into pebbles by hand became a meditative act. This year, the pebbles were made from the ashes collected during the time when Giulia Casartelli has been for her residency at the Studio Partiküler Partiküller, together with ashes collected by my mother, Perihan Yükdağ, over the previous winter, when Pina Bal was born. All of these events belong to the same period of time. This year’s pebble making was carried out by Perihan, resulting in a total of 3300 pebbles. 2026 of these pebbles are traveling to the Chiesa Vecchia di San Giovanni Evangelista in Galbiate, as a form of blessing for the connection between the four of us: Pina Bal, Giulia, my mother and me. The pebbles are placed beneath legs of the structure. Particles by Perihan Yükdağ Fired ash and ceramic dust, variable dimensions, 2026