Turkish artists to join London Climate Action Week with online show

By Handan Kazanci

ISTANBUL (AA) - Four Turkish artists will join the London Climate Action Week (LCAW) with an online art exhibition, organizers said Friday.

Selva Ozelli, Semine Hazar, Fatma Kadir and Ilhan Sayin are joining this year’s first part of the London Climate Action Week which runs June 26 to July 4, Ozelli said in a statement.

Ozelli prepared and curated seven new art shows for the event.

“I am honored and excited to join London Climate Action Week supported by the world’s first climate change museum CUHK Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change with my Art in the Time of Corona 3, 4, 5 - Recovery Roses art shows,” Ozelli told Anadolu Agency.

“In my art shows I depict coronavirus in the form of roses,” she said. “Because rose has been cultivated for the last 5,000 years during the ancient civilization of China, Western Asia and Northern Africa, which facilitated its diversification to close to 40,000 varieties that are grown on almost every continent both in gardens and urban settings hardest hit by the pandemic.”

“London Climate Action Week (LCAW) is harnessing the power of London for global climate action,” according to the event’s website. “The annual event brings together the city’s world-leading array of climate professionals and communities. Now in its third year, LCAW creates space for participants to come together and find global solutions to climate change.”

-Maskuary Campaign

The Turkish artists curated their #Maskuary Campaign art shows that are on exhibit at LCAW as well as at CUHK Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change online.

“The pandemic has made matters worse by producing an enormous amount of single-use plastic medical waste,” according to LCAW’s website.

“Fatma Kadir with her art show reminds us that we must guard nature by changing our production and consumption habits towards cleaner and greener existence, particularly in light of the global coronavirus pandemic,” it said. “With her paintings of trees, birds, people and single-use plastic protective masks, Fatma joins TiredEarth.com’s #Maskuary Campaign which aims at warning against the dangers of pollution from disposable masks to the environment.”

“Tiredearth is a nonprofit and apolitical group trying internationally to inspire, improve awareness, get motivated hearts together, and increase the hope for a shiny future,” according to the website.