For SALA 2023, The Mill is excited to present Alchemical, a solo exhibition by multimedia artist Yasemin Sabuncu. This exhibition reclaims the artist's space and power as a creative who has had their career and life affected by late-stage diagnosis of endometriosis and ADHD. The works explore how to find safety, rest, home, and love in a body that is often labelled wrong or is causing pain and disability.
Yasemin Sabuncu is the recipient of the Mahmood Martin Foundation Sponsored Studio for the January-June residency in 2023.
This Virtual Gallery includes exhibition photography and social photography from the opening night and the live stream of Yasemin’s artist talk.
Photo: Daniel Marks
This exhibition explores the transformative power of chronic illness and how it can alchemise you into something unexpected, new, and uncharted. I wanted to show the shadow and light of the process of evolution I experienced trying to find healing, meaning, and answers to why I was feeling so out of sorts and being so sick I couldn’t work.
Through tens of thousands of dollars in medical costs, being bed bound, unable to work, countless hours of appointments, surgeries, invasive tests, waiting up to a year for certain appointments, and evaluations I finally found some answers. It took almost two decades for me to find this diagnosis. I was not alone with the length of diagnosis, Endometriosis which effects 1 in 9 people who were assigned female at birth, takes on average 10 years to diagnose which is not good enough.
Photo: Daniel Marks
The whole process had nearly broken me many times and I had to rely on my inner strength to survive and persevere with the uncertainty and my degrading health. Despite my best efforts I had slipped through the cracks of the medical system, and been living with undiagnosed endometriosis, adenomyosis, chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, and ADHD. It was a relief in some ways to find out what was ‘wrong’ with me, but then I had to let go of who I used to be and create a new life within the limitations of my conditions.
Luckily now with understanding of my body and finding suitable treatments and surgery I have been forever altered and beginning a new life initiated by the alchemical process of living with my conditions. The liminal space I endured birthed into something beautiful, at times terrifying, and ultimately life changing. It made me look deeper into my spirituality, consciousness, and deep investigation of life and the universe. This process is represented through the spectrum of colours, shapes, textures, biological and geological imagery, and various mediums to reflect on some of my experiences through this process.
Social photos: Daniel Marks
Yasemin Sabuncu was the recipient of The Mill’s Mahmood Martin Foundation Sponsored Studio for the January-June residency in 2023.
