The everyday ‘language’ of denim: Deniz Sagdiç
Contemporary Turkish artist Deniz Sagdiç (born 1982), known for her use of denim as an art medium, spoke as part of a panel discussion on sustainable fashion during Turkey’s TechXtile Start-up Challenge event.
Speaking to Inside Denim, Ms Sagdiç, who has been harnessing the “breathtaking” creative potential of denim since she first began her Ready-ReMade project in 2016, noted denim’s “infinite and profound [artistic and technical] possibilities”, describing the fabric as “not only a tool or a material”, but a “communication platform”.
“You can scratch and sculpt denim like marble, without the fear of it breaking like marble. You can transform it into three-dimensional forms, like a sculpture, by stretching, bending and folding it,” the artist said. “By scratching and aging denim, you can discover countless shades of the same colour. My work benefits from all of this. I even weave denim like a carpet sometimes,” Ms Sagdiç continued.
From trouser pockets, to tags, buttons and zips, Ms Sagdiç cuts, pastes and weaves “all” aspects of a denim garment in her work.
Most important, though, is “the place of denim in people’s minds.” For the artist, denim is an “ordinary”, democratic material. It can be worn by anybody, no matter their “religion, language, race or economic class” and “does not belong to a certain culture or country”.
Ms Sagdiç sees denim as equally appropriate for a head of state as for a homeless person and it is precisely this global “equality”, in the artist’s view, that imbues denim with creative potential, capable of bridging divides and “reminding” people of their basic humanity.
Today, while art institutions around the world remain closed due to covid-19, Ms Sagdiç does not feel the pressure of indefinitely postponed exhibitions, like many artists, for she has always preferred to reach “large masses” of people via multiple channels.
For now, at least, she is instead harnessing the power of another “democratic” medium: the internet. A frequent poster on Instagram (her handle is @denizsagdicart), the artist engages her 26,000-plus followers on her own terms, beyond the reach - and influence - of the traditional white cube gallery space.
A recent Instagram caption to her 2020 rendering of 1950s American actor James Dean’s portrait in denim further reveals the egalitarian undertones to Ms Sagdiç’s art philosophy: “In a world where our very skin … is a tool for discrimination, denim - by creating a sense of tolerance and being the symbol of equality and democracy - represents values that are more ‘human’ than the human skin itself.”
Image: Deniz Sagdiç, Untitled (2018).
