I am Hungry

'I am Hungry' is a performed installation that examines how emotional trauma is shaped and sustained through gendered expectations placed on women’s bodies and roles. Drawing from feminist thought and a childhood memory, the work brings together 24 terracotta rice pudding bowls, formed in organic shapes that subtly echo vulvas.

These vessels hold multiple tensions; between nourishment and control, care and shame, intimacy and exposure. They reflect how the female body is often disciplined, softened, and made to carry unspoken histories within domestic and cultural frameworks.

Arranged on a worn wooden table with aged cloths, the installation evokes the familiarity of the domestic space, where acts of care are repeated and internalised over time. Within this setting, gestures of feeding and preparation become charged, revealing how trauma can be both inherited and maintained through everyday rituals.

Rooted in Turkish cultural tradition, 'I am Hungry' approaches food not only as sustenance, but as a carrier of memory, expectation, and silent endurance; a gesture through which survival and unspeakable inheritance are held and passed on.