What Remains on the Rug

“What Remains on the Rug” is a thirty-minute performance in which Batur repeatedly scrubs a Turkish rug stained with synthetic blood. Brushes are bound to her hands, restricting their movement and keeping her body attached to the act of cleaning.

Batur works over the same area again and again, attempting to remove the stain. As the performance continues, the blood changes across the surface but does not disappear. The repeated effort to clean begins to alter both the stain and the gesture itself.

Cleaning ordinarily carries the expectation of an end: a surface is worked on until it is considered clean. Here, that point never arrives. The action continues beyond its practical function, turning maintenance into a physically demanding cycle that the body remains bound to perform.

The rug carries its own associations with the domestic interior, while the synthetic blood introduces a trace of violence into that familiar surface. Repeated cleaning cannot return it to its previous state. The more the body works to remove the evidence, the longer it remains engaged with it.

The rug holds what cannot be removed.