earthbound territories

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Betül Aksuearthbound territories
2025
Earth pigments on 320 gsm acid-free, 100% cotton, handmade Khadi paper
21x30 cm each
Part of the Permessus series

earthbound territories is a series of earth pigment drawings that expands the fictional world of Permessus, an imagined ancient city without defined borders or a single narrative. The shapes in these compositions are traced from the broken ceramic fragments of ground studies, a previous work in the series that explored ground as both a physical surface and a conceptual space.

Rendered in earth pigments, these outlines become abstract territories that resemble maps yet refuse legibility or containment. What once existed as the fractured surface of an installation is refigured here as a form of counter-cartography that exposes how land is claimed, divided, and governed through systems of power.

The work questions the authority of borders and the narratives that legitimize them. It reflects on how territory is not only drawn but imposed often through violence, bureaucracy, and exclusion. By reimagining these fragments as unstable and interdependent, earthbound territories resists the logic of control and invites people to consider how spaces might be shaped through relation rather than dominance.