Zeynep Abacı associates her works created with mixed techniques on canvas with the concept of False Memory in the light of the relationship between space and memory. In line with the view that "every moment we try to remember is a corrupted copy of the previous one", his works deal with familiar but foreign spaces in the artist's autobiographical memory and the fictional transformation of these spaces/memories.
Zeynep Abacı gives the following statements in the text of the 'False Memory' exhibition:
“The difference between fake memories and real memories is the same as with jewellery: fake ones always seem more real, brighter.” S. Dali
‘Sometimes an empty seat, sometimes the trunk of a tree, what we hide in a drawer, a smell or a sound… takes us to the place of our memories. The process of revealing the experiences from the hidden place of memory is thought to be directly related to space. While the images of the memories emerge with the space, the remembered 'things' change in their own evolution and flow towards the present. So much so that Huyssen mentions that memory is a cultural construct made in the present.
It is possible to say “I was there!” for False Memory. Our personal history/mythology that we have created with the stories transferred to us, or those photo frames that we never remember, can turn into false memories in our memory that we can say 'I was there!' and most of the time we don't even realize it. In order to believe in the reality of the moment, we place these fictions in a place in our minds. Sometimes when I wake up, I find myself wandering in a house/place that I remember all the details of but have never seen... Maybe these foreign but familiar places that overflow my imagination are copies of our fictional memories. According to Donna Bridge, “A memory is not like a complete photograph that we create by going back to the original moment. It is a corrupt copy of the moment. Your memories weaken as you remember them. The most interesting aspect of the irony of memory; When we try to recall a memory over and over, what we do is actually remembering the last time we remember that memory. For this reason, false memories may be included in these efforts to remember each time.” Considering that remembering is spatial, it is possible to say that false memories based on fiction transform the space every time.
The fiction in my work focuses precisely on this transformation. There is a kind of moment of remembrance in the representation, and the figure multiplies like the layers of the space. The perspective is changing, the horizon line is increasing, and an uncanny dominates the scene. It is possible to express this uncanny by the figures turning their backs to the audience. The paintings I edited with vivid and bright colors reflect this feeling of uncanny and conflict. Each of the proliferating figures, while observing a forgotten present, presents the viewer with an atmosphere that dissolves in time and space. There is hardly any space between the figures and the space. This lack of distance corresponds to the displacement of the past with the present. The melting figures and spaces in my paintings represent the journey of the past towards the present.
The concept of False Memory, which I approached in parallel with the idea that memory is intertwined with fiction, constitutes the main theme of the exhibition. In this exhibition, representations of autobiographical memory blend with reality and fiction. Experienced spaces and false spaces/memories are intertwined. Every time we try to remember our memories, we start to reconstruct. Therefore, we transform the space, which cannot be separated from memory, every time. These moments of re-remembering and editing can be reflected in our minds as false memories. Every time we try to remember, we reproduce the spaces of our autobiographical memory. The exhibition False Memory invites the viewer to find the answer to this question together, while focusing on the possibilities of “how much of what we remember is fiction and how much is real.”
