Mehves Beyidoglu

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Humbleness- Selçuk Veli

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“My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.” 
~ Clarence Budington Kelland.
 
Calling one "down to earth" might be a wise way to honor him. It is rare that one can reach that level of enlightenment. The more one knows and experiences life the more one becomes wise. Only if one has a good heart and is intelligent enough, he becomes free from his egos and unnecessary selfishness. When one is free from his egos, he reaches enlightenment. The more one knows and experiences life the more one realizes that he knows nothing. As Socrates says, "I know that I know nothing, and this is the beginning of true knowledge". 

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My father was someone who had these, and moral qualities to reach enlightenment. I wanted to express my admiration for my father's humble achievements by reflecting on his character through my personal sharing with him as well as his personal notes. This work is my journey with him. 
My father was an admirable man. Greatness is perhaps best realized in the ordinary father’s life. There was a humble nobility in my father’s life that he never wanted to share. Unlike him, I wanted to introduce him to the world. I wanted to share how great and glorious he was. I wanted to shout out loud how he was important to this small community and the world. The way he perceived life and his value of living with a minimum and his desire to know and learn about everything is worthy of commendation. He was not mentioned in any of the documentaries or recognized to be commemorated for his efforts in his lifetime. In this journey, I started with his character, and then my ideas turned into making of his archival biography only by presenting his notes without showing any emotions of myself. This has not been an easy ride for me since I am very devoted to my father who was more of a role model for me throughout my life. Thus, I turned back to the original idea – how I knew him. Why I admire him so much? So, things have shifted to my perspective towards my father. 
With this exhibition, I want to reflect his inspirational nature as a person and his humbleness. In this work, I acknowledge and appreciate the great man in my life, my role model. I always hoped to become and achieve half of what he knew and experienced in life. He was truly an inspiring person. His tears were unseen, his love was unexpressed, and his care remained a pillar of strength in my life. Therefore, I left aside all the ideas and works that I wanted to show in an objective way, and I was relieved from the idea of introducing him to the wider world; inspired by his humbleness, I decided to admit all my emotions and express myself through my own unique way. As I know him and nobody else!

The process:
Apart from the emotional swings that I have experienced while curating the art, I had done a literature review on the themes relevant to the concept of “down to earth.” Tolerance, being humble, being open-minded, understanding the value of diversity, not being condescending, not oppressing one with knowledge, making someone think silently and calmly, not tending to teach all the time but listening, having a big heart, knowing the meaning and value of the silence and being wise, appreciating every living being in nature and seeing everyone equal were the phases brought into my attention during my research. The literature review covered articles, books, documentaries, and the artists working on their beloved ones. I also interviewed my father’s colleagues and found his voice records in the radio archives. Some of these sources were shared in the video. I read all his notes, diaries, and professional plans. I went over the notes he kept here and there. I slept over some of the notes he took to understand better what he meant in his articulation of experiences. While doing these, I developed ideas about how much to share with the public and how much I wanted to keep to myself.