"Eşik / Threshold'' (back side), punch needle embroidery on unbleached cotton fabric, 150 x 200 cm, edition 1/1, 2025. 4.5. Antalya Architecture Biennial, Antalya Battery Factory, Photo: Kaan Güneri
Threshold is a large-scale punch embroidery work that reads the continuous flow of modern urban life through a cross-section severed by the sudden intervention of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rendered in isometric perspective, the composition abruptly bisects, where architectural forms dissolve into abstract horizontal threads.
The use of this labor-intensive craft reinforces the concept; the repetitive stitching reproduces the states of deceleration and endurance experienced during the pandemic, where each loop acts as a tactile record of that specific time.
The work’s inherent double-sided nature offers two opposing narratives: the defined, legible order of the obverse and the chaotic, hidden knots of the reverse. This duality embodies the state of being suspended in an indeterminate moment—neither fully returned to the past nor completely adapted to the new reality.
Threshold stands not merely as an urban landscape, but as a tactile archive, preserving a collective rupture and a transitionary state in fiber.
The interior is rendered as an abstract blueprint. Capturing the sudden dislocation of the pandemic era—a domestic landscape floating on a previously unexperienced plane of reality.
In-progress view of the 'Threshold' installation. The image captures the manual transfer of the axonometric technical drawing onto the textile surface via the punch needle technique.
Decoupled documentation of the textile surfaces. The image highlights the structural duality of the punch needle technique: the graphic definition of the backing (left) contrasted with the tactile density of the looped surface (right). Photos: Kaan Güneri
Macro details of the front surface showing the volumetric loop pile texture. The monochromatic relief relies on the interplay of light and shadow to define the architectural geometry without chromatic contrast. Photos: Kaan Güneri
Macro detail of the reverse side (verso). Unlike the organized linearity of the front, this surface reveals the raw, irregular entanglement of loose threads and knots that constitute the structural foundation.