Ancient Wisdom

“The hammam is a full sensory experience taking place in the here and now,” Istanbul-based artist Lara Ögel tells Konfekt as she sips a quince sherbet drink at the city's Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamami. “It has a hygienic purpose but as an artist who flirts with the field of phenomenology, I am interested in the nuances of everyday life that are found here.”

Out of all of the city's hammams, Ögel favours this pavilion, built in 1583 by Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. “Being in this space you become part of history,” she says gesturing towards the exposed red-clay-and-mortar walls and the high dome of the ceiling.

Ögel slopes off and reappears, wearing a red and white checked peshtemal (bath wrap). She is whisked away to the bathhouse for the hammam ritual. Proceedings begin with a splash of lukewarm water, then Ögel is brought into a steamed dome chamber to lie on a heated, circular marble platform called the gobektasi. After lounging and perspiring, it's time for exfoliation and massage. “This is a cosmic ritual you can recreate at home,” says Ögel, who emerges from the treatment nearly an hour later and takes a seat on a divan. “There is the constant sound of water. Then there is the heat and the cold. You feel different kinds of textures: you get scrubbed, then you are covered in soap bubbles. All the while, you are below a starry dome with slivers of light entering.” She points out that the hammam is the act of shedding skin and emerging as a new, rejuvenated self. “It is unbecoming and becoming at the same time,” says the artist.

“It is a vulnerable situation that you experience alone, yet collectively alongside the people you share the same space with. It is the pinnacle of being cared for in a healing and feminine way.”

Documenting shedding skin and other forms of dust have been part of Ögel's artistic practice for some time. At her 2018 solo show, Imtidad, she invited onlookers to trace the structural residues of the historic Galata Greek School. The school's journey through time was portrayed in five dust-covered windows retrieved from a depot. The same year, in her work “Mundessa: All Seeds”, Ögel used various media to display flakes of her skin. “The dust in your home is mostly made out of your own skin,” she says. “So I looked at the dust in my house. I filmed it and I collected it. I made a bed out of it.”

For her, the hammam is also an experiment in trust. “You are naked,” she says. “The other people around you are naked as well. It is a super-vulnerable situation that you experience alone, yet collectively alongside the people you share the same space with. There are these women caring for your body, who are as gentle or rough as you want them to be. It is the pinnacle of being cared for in a healing and feminine way.” We gather that she is glad that Istanbul's hammams are now open to the public after last year's lockdown. “I am happy they are back,” says Ögel as she strolls off, a woman renewed, along the Bosphorus.