Esna Su

Jewellery Artist Esna Su breathes stories into materials to create evocative handcrafted pieces. Her body of work subtly explores the issues of identity and memory and how these are shaken in the context of political instability. She envelops her pieces with heritage, as she uses traditional Turkish techniques of weaving, twining, and crochet. Yet they mutate into wearable sculptures as she translates them into her own language. Almost a continuation of the body, their organic structure gives form to unseen layers of emotions, memories and sensations. These emanate from the crafted paper rush, vegetable tanned leather and patterned fabric. Through irregular form and hollow shapes, she exposes the burden of displacement but also sketches an aspiration towards protection and preservation. By underlining this dialogue between absence and embodiment she expresses complex yet narrative journeys.