ANOUSHA PAYNE: MURMURATIONS
The exhibition title, Murmurations, evokes multiple meanings—whispers, quiet repetitions of sound, the synchronized movement of a flock of birds in flight, and the evolving patterns perceived within these formations. In dialogue with the cistern’s storied walls, Payne’s work explores how personal histories and perceptions shape the ways we read and interpret imagery.
She “murmurs” her interpretations back to us, creating fictional characters drawn from the visual and tactile impressions of the cistern’s textured surfaces. By taking castings from the space—hollows in the stone, watermarks, and erosion patterns—she transforms these traces into sculptural forms that embody the memory of the site.
Anousha Payne scratches through the layered fabric of Istanbul, a city that never erases the past but builds over, around, and alongside it. Beneath the surface of immediate perception, she reveals new identities and stories—much like the discovery of the frescoes in the cold sections of Zeyrek Çinili Hamam and the cistern below. This investigative process of scratching, building, editing, and adding is carried through her use of ceramics and other materials across the exhibition.
Working intuitively, Payne offers a poetic reading of the archaeological process, filling in historical absences with sculptural drawings that suggest imaginary narratives around unearthed but incomplete fragments.
Her material explorations include hammered brass—echoing traditional hammam bowls—alongside found objects, textiles, canvas, and sculptural media. These figures emerge from the architecture, imagined as ancient or mythical inhabitants of the cistern—beings shaped by water and time. By populating the space with these spectral forms, Payne reanimates the Byzantine cistern, inviting viewers to reconsider the layered histories of the hammam through a contemporary lens.
Murmurations inaugurates a new series of contemporary art programs curated by Anlam de Coster, inviting international artists to produce site-specific works that engage deeply with the history, architecture, rituals, and symbolism of this unique cultural landmark.
