MELEK ZEYNEP BULUT 

words Burcu Dimili   

Open Monuments Images Mark Cocksedge  

London Design Festival expands its public programme this winter with Open Monuments, a new installation by Melek Zeynep Bulut that occupies the entrance courtyard of the Design Museum from 1 to 14 December. 

Following Paul Cocksedge’s What Nelson Sees at Trafalgar Square and Lee Broom’s Beacon at the Southbank Centre, the commission reinforces the festival’s ongoing commitment to placing contemporary design at the centre of urban life.

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Bulut transforms the courtyard into a quiet stage within the city. Fundamental geometric forms become extensions of a single, continuous line — shapes without beginning or end — creating a spatial composition that both engages visitors and observes their presence.

NO BEGINNING, NO END

Could you tell us about your Open Monuments installation?

Open Monuments is, for me, a meeting point — a place designed for connection. It is open to participation and shaped by it. Each structure extends from one infinite line, without a defined start or finish. They emerge as tributes to essential geometric forms and, within the city, act as abstract performers. Individually they stand as autonomous works; together they form a unified composition. As visitors interact with them, the installation becomes both an experience and an object of contemplation. An open-ended staging of a “utopian city” begins. That was the idea behind it.

Open Monuments treats memory objects and cultural concepts as instruments. How do you relate to these ideas?

This comes from my relationship with being in the world — with the body, with form and matter. As I try to understand this connection, I look again at everything humanity has expressed through these themes across history and reflect it through my own lens.

You describe each piece as “an extension of a single infinite line”. Could you expand on that?

I believe the structure of life operates this way. Everything unfolds as part of a continuous flow — like an unbroken sound. I observe the scenes that appear within this flow and try to interpret them.

DUO: A MORE ABSTRACT, SELF-GENERATING WORK

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Your piece Duo, which received the D’Arc Award in the UK and recognition at the Créateurs Design Awards, also appeared at London Design Festival. What sets this work apart for you?

Duo is more abstract — shaped by a perception and awareness that seems to generate itself. Rather than offering answers, it creates room for questions. Technically, it behaves like a skin. It senses and perceives you. Structured through sensors and light, it becomes a monument in its own right. We built the system using the most essential elements. I imagined the experience in two movements: first, the shift in scale and perspective, a light and theatrical presence that unsettles perception; then the moment the installation registers you — the sensors respond, light shifts, echoes appear. You walk through it, and then you leave.

BETWEEN MEMORY AND INFINITY

Your solo installation The Recursion Project: Levh-i Mahfuz featured in the 2025 edition of London Design Biennale. What did you explore in this series?

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The series includes seven works. “Recursion” — meaning “self-reference, self-calling” — is a term often used in game software; once activated, it directs the player back to an endlessly repeating starting point. Levh-i Mahfuz Scene, the first work in the series, examines the relationship between memory and the search for infinity.

Reflective fictional fragments, created using soil collected from different regions of Türkiye and referencing collective memory, form the “Recursion Game.” The work looks beyond linear ideas of time and matter. Around 3,000 reflective soil pieces were individually shaped and placed within the structure with precision. At Somerset House, a dark room — a nod to the black box — was constructed, and these speaker-fitted soil fragments were suspended at the centre in the form of a cube.