Museum to devote itself to ‘godesses’

DATÇA, Muğla - Doğan News Agency

Artists from around Turkey are creating the mother goddess sculptures during the workshop. They will be displayed in the museum of its first kind in Turkey.

Academics are pursuing plans to open Turkey’s first museum devoted to “mother goddesses” in the southwestern province of Muğla’s Datça district.

“This place will become Turkey’s model open-air museum,” said Istanbul Işık University Professor Meriç Hızal.

The International Knidos Culture and Arts Academy (UKKSA), an innovative academy that was established in the village of Yatacık, just 12 kilometers away from the ancient city of Knidos, will display mother goddesses whose name are mentioned in various myths in the Mediterranean and Aegean regions. The sculptures are currently being made by sculptors from various Turkish universities.

“The sculptures will be finished in 20 days,” Hızal said. “We are the latest chains of a two-year work.”
Hızal and six students gathered for the 20 days of work during a symposium on Anatolian themes which is being held in the town.

“Thousands of years ago, the world’s most famous scientists and artists created unforgettable works; sculptor Praxiteles’ world famous naked Aphrodite sculpture, astronomy scientist and mathematician Eudoxos’ sundial are some of them. We serve in the academy with our sculpture, ceramics and glass workshops. By organizing sculpture symposiums, we want to open Turkey’s first mother goddesses museum,” UKKSA Chairman Nevzat Metin said.

Nermin Ülker, a graduate from Istanbul Işık University Fine Arts Faculty, said she had been making a sculpture titled “Ilithia’s Window.”

“I plan to tell the tension between the mother goddess Hera and her birth goddess daughter Ilithia. I am at the same time an operating room nurse. This is why I have always had an interest in Ilithia. It is believed that this goddess makes things easier for pregnant women. But Hera prevents Ilithia from going to help these women and causes babies to die. I will relate this conflict between mother and daughter in my sculpture,” the artist said.