Huo Rf

… person, action, situation … emerged as a series that looks at the concept of “shame” individually, socially, ecologically, and politically and elaborates the concept as discussion/dialogue through portraits, which I aim to expand into a broader perspective over time.

As I looked at the concept of shame and thought about it, I began to see concretely that it varied a lot according to daily habits, professional practices, city-space, family, society, or physical/scientific/ecological awareness. I started exploring how the feeling of shame that one is trying to get rid of or formed as being unwanted is an individual struggle, how shame surrounds the person, how the society turns this feeling into an element of pressure, how and to what extent the tradition takes place in these experiences, at what stage the boundaries are noticed, the problems that emerge when the limits are removed and at the end what was left from the confrontation area. As I opened up about the shame that we suppressed the most and buried deep, I found in the answers to the three questions I asked for each work: why shame exists, where it came from, its source, how solid but invisible veil it is.

I asked the mentioned questions as follows;

• Would you consider sharing something that you feel ashamed of if there's any?

• If you had such an experience, do you still feel shame over it after you've shared it?

• What are your common reactions when you come across something shameful?

I am continuing this series, which I started in a residency experience in 2019, with different portraits accompanied by the same questions, in Naples, where I came through the residency program of Fondazione Morra*. I engrave the answers about shame from art professionals with different experiences that allow me to connect with the city on copper sheets because of its temporality and conductive material. We can also physically touch these works that have turned into a place installation, and we can form stronger bonds by talking about our shame.

*The residency by Huo Rf at Fondazione Morra in Autumn 2021 is part of the program of cultural exchanges Neapolitan Dialogues designed by Vittorio Urbani for Fondazione Morra.

**With Turkey ONE Association’s kind support in partnership with Fondazione Morra.

SHAME: Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, described as a moral or social emotion that drives people to hide or deny their wrongdoings. The focus of shame is on the self or the individual with respect to a perceived audience. Empirical research demonstrates that it is dysfunctional for the individual and group level. Shame can also be described as an unpleasant self-conscious emotion that involves negative evaluation of the self. Shame can be a painful emotion that is seen as a "...comparison of the self's action with the self's standards..." but may equally stem from comparison of the self's state of being with the ideal social context's standard. Some scales measure shame to assess emotional states, whereas other shame scales are used to assess emotional traits or dispositions- shame proneness. "To shame" generally means to actively assign or communicate a state of shame to another person. Behaviors designed to "uncover" or "expose" others are sometimes used to place shame on the other person. Whereas, having shame means to maintain a sense of restraint against offending others (as with modesty, humility, and deference). In contrast to having shame is to have no shame; behave without the restraint to offend others, similar to other emotions like pride or hubris. (source: wikipedia)

Special thanks to: American Turkish Society, My mentors Dara Birnbaum, William Powhida and Media Farzin, all resident artists and SVA. Melek Gençer, Ferhan Gençer, Selim Bilen, Asena Doğan, Maxwell Chien, Joseph Imhauser, Peppermint, Lara Fresko, Fondazione Morra, Turkey ONE Association, Giuseppe Morra, Vittorio Urbani, Serra Yilmaz, Asad Raza, Alessandra Toroncone, Marta Wroblewska, Luca Di Bernardo, Hera Büyüktaşçiyan, Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum, Nihat Karataşlı, İz Öztat.