Death Sentence

The main idea of the “Death Sentence” project derived from the process of war and killing in different countries or states at different times. Though a millennium of history is concealed behind it. People have been killing each other for personal, social, military, civilian, state, tribal, national, non-ethnic, multi-ethnic, and multi-dimensional reasons since the beginning of creation. Over the ages, laws, rules, policies, methods of killing, and the design of weapons have also evolved.

For this project I was researching on the evolution of weapons from the Stone Age to modern days. In the meanwhile, mankind improved knowledge and skill including art, science, engineering, and technology. Numerous individuals have employed that understanding to refine armaments. Here, death and aesthetics coexist. I was researching the very odd and severe inverse link between death and beauty.

I have developed 4 series of art work, one is based on the archival ancients’ monuments as stone curving or terracotta that exist in the museums, which carry the legacy of ancient war and weapon. I have reproduced the images in cyanotype print on archival paper that used for preserve archival documents, highlighted the weapons using gold leaf, A Japanese guiding technique that used to work with.

Another work I was inspired by the code of Hammurabi’s low, the first written constitution that still exist, I have chosen most commonly known low no 196 and 200. Another piece is from the quote of artist Edvard munch. I used silk fabric and cotton to create the alphabets.

My next work is inspired from the jeweled crafted pattern of firearms, handgun, dagger, sword from Turk- Seljuks, the Persians, Damascus, the Mughals, The Ottomans, the Vikings and Arabs. I have recreated the patterns on Japanese paper using gold, copper and silver leaf; after cutting the edges of the drawings it become very soft and fragile. These amours couldn’t be able to serve the real prepose that it used to own.

Lastly, I have chosen three words that changed the war and death punishments history.  Hemlock, Gunpowder and Hydrogen. I have created these words using silk fabric.