Müge Yilmaz’s artistic exploration makes us contemplate the significance of the harvest cycle and our relationship to the land that sustains us. This is also at the core of how Quetzal manages its vineyards by regenerating the soil and encouraging biodiversity.
The original drawing by Müge Yilmaz used for the Arte wine bottle makes connections between a myriad of ancient references read through feminist lenses - most notably hieroglyphics from Neolithic Anatolia, and other artifacts that hold mythical and belief-based properties. Her creatures share morphological features and characteristics with cave drawings, ancient sculptures, and archetypical iconography of hybrid plant-human-animal beings. The figurine in the middle is connected to our oldest known deities that of female agriculture goddesses of the earth and fertility.
The figurine was presented in the previous exhibition, Echoes of Our Stories at Quetzal Art Center where the goddess is hidden inside the sculpture the Goddess Theory (Moonclock). With the Goddess Theory (Ophanim and Moonclock), 2022 she evokes a matriarchal future world, for which she draws inspiration from extraordinary archaeological sites in central Anatolia, such as the nearly 9,000-year-old Çatalhöyük. It consists of two monumental wooden sculptures that form floating beacons in the exhibition space. The objects stem directly from Yilmaz' own science fiction story about a village in the year 4,000, inhabited and led by people who identify as women. They were the only survivors of an unknown catastrophe on earth, due to their traditional knowledge of how to live with nature.
Location: vineyard at Quinta do Quetzal, opening April 18, 2025
