On Arda Asena’s Interstitial 

Aslı Zengin

“In the exhibition Interstitial, a concept derived from the Latin word interstitium, meaning “a space between, Arda Asena invites us to embrace thresholds, liminal zones, and connective tissues that often defy rigid categorization. Asena creates artistic experimentations with ecological spaces, bodies, and objects that exist in the in-between by inciting viewers to explore the delicate interplay between surface, skin, and intimacy—a dialogue that blurs the lines between the human body and the earth, the psyche and the external world. Asena’s cross-pollination of photography, sculpture, and textile reflects this in-betweenness across artistic disciplines. Their choice of mediums and creation of artwork generate questions about relating, moving, orienting, sensing, and becoming in ecological and embodied worlds, where boundaries dissolve and connections emerge unexpectedly. Through the interstitial sites of cracks, traces, transitions, and translations, Asena’s work breathes, uniting texture, memory, archive, and sensation.

The exhibition draws threads between the skin and the earth. Textiles resembling human flesh are woven into installations that mimic landscapes, challenging viewers to consider the porousness of these seemingly distinct entities. Threads stitch together skin and the earth, binding what seems separate. A language emerges in the liminal space where touch and sight converge. What does it mean to weave vision into texture, to feel what we see? What does it mean for the body and the earth to merge, to mirror each other? The artist explores these questions through mediums that transcend their traditional boundaries. Photographs weave into textiles, creating a multisensory experience that translates sight into touch and vice versa. The works whisper of shared intimacy between human and non-human entities, reminding us that we are inextricably linked to the world around us. Negative visuals of rocky terrains, arid landscapes, and wild plants accompany close-ups of the human body and skin, creating an uncanny sense of continuity. The interplay of light, color, shadow, and needle scratches transforms these images into a tactile surface. By collapsing the boundaries between senses, Asena fosters a more intimate connection between the viewer and the work. Mediums collide, blend, and reconstitute themselves anew. Senses speak to one another.

The interstitial also includes what is often overlooked or dismissed as residual. It can be a site of tension, conflict, precarity, and violence because lives and bodies in the in-between are often marginalized or erased for not neatly fitting into established frameworks. In Asena’s works, the earth’s crust and human skin emerge as repositories of histories, traumas, and transformations. The artist’s manipulation of texture—creating seemingly hard surfaces from soft materials—invites viewers to question their assumptions about strength and vulnerability. For example, lumps sticking out on the sculpture’s body resemble wounds, hinting at injuries and memories of violence that resurface. These lumps are not flaws; they are storytellers, embodying a record of what has been hidden or repressed but refuses to remain buried. What goes hidden, repressed, or buried can never remain still. Wounds rise, memories break free, and time etches its indelible marks on the skin of humans, on the skin of the earth, and on the shells of objects. The skin, no longer a barrier, becomes a threshold: porous, absorbing, exhaling. Interstitial becomes a space for uncovering what lies beneath. 

Ultimately, Asena tempts viewers to open themselves to a deeper understanding of the world and their place within it—a world that is not just defined by what lies within boundaries but also by the rich potential of the spaces between. The exhibition surrounds viewers in its rich incitements to ponder transformation, negotiation, and exploration. This way, Asena offers us a space where we can inhabit the in-between, and hence, complexity, fluidity, connection, and transformation.”