Burcu Yağcıoğlu, 1981

Burcu Yağcıoğlu was born in 1981 in Istanbul. She received her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Painting at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in 2001 and her master’s degree from the Department of Visual Art and Visual Communication Design at Sabanci University in 2005, then continued her graduate degree education at Goldsmiths University in London until 2008. The artist now lives and works in Istanbul and London.

Yağcıoğlu’s art practice comprises a variety of different techniques of representation, including video, painting, drawing, and sculpture. The artist deliberates on the concept of mutability in terms of images, objects, experiences, ideas, and forms.

“I Would Swallow You Whole” rearranges in a playfully humorous way the acts of hiding and showing. Yağcıoğlu first combs her hair slowly, then, with the tip of the comb, starts to separate her hair into strands. After securing each strand of hair with pins, she fixes them with hair spray. The video is silent except for various intervals when we hear the spritzing sound of hair spray. Finally, the character, who seems to be practically naked, transforms her own long black hair into a headscarf. In short, the act of covering up and hiding a part of herself is achieved with another part of herself – her hair. A response to the body concealing itself, the work also points to how human beings strive to muffle and veil their own mental and spiritual world.