Mercer Union invites artist Alize Zortlutuna to develop a yearlong series of works titled Surface Tension for the SPACE Billboard Commission in 2025-26. Working across video, performance, text, and sculpture, Zorlutuna’s practice uses gesture, repetition, and ritual to consider the relationships between bodies and ecologies. Often beginning with the forms and narratives that we carry with us, the artist’s work attunes to queer sensibilities for enlivening embodied and ancestral knowledges.

Their recent projects emerge from a longstanding interest in the traditional hydrographic printing technique of Ebru, and include works on textile and paper that resist mastery of conventional patterns in favour of emergent forms. At Mercer Union, the artist performs a sculptural study of the distinct marbled patterns of Ebru by using large-format digital reproduction and physical interventions. The series’ title alludes to the delicate and fundamental act of negotiation between water and suspended natural pigments that is central to the practice of Ebru. The artist explores this notion as a conceptual framework for reading a visual field and introduces a responsive sculptural language of cuts and folds that trace and transform the image.

For Zorlutuna, Ebru speaks to the moment when land and water, hand and breath, touch in a process of co-becoming. In each of the three sculptural banners, careful incisions splay the image, breaking its membrane to release the movements humming within. As changing light, brushing wind, and beading water act upon the works’ surface, a kinetic dialogue begins with the natural elements that were momentarily stilled in each composition.

Surface Tension: Cloudstone [Battal] is the first edition in the yearlong series; accompanying the work is a text by Chiedza Pasipanodya

the leap

a patterned field bubbles
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎liquid interference
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎surface stages a struggle
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎pushes pulls undoes
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎opposing forces move through
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎water and ox gall
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎delineating boundaries
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎revealing their permeability

black and white
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ visible and hidden
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ camouflage reveals hi vis
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ do you want to be seen or not seen
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎defense and resistance
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ a ruse that says there is more here than you can see
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ protest banners with their wind cutouts
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ vents made to prevent flight
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ be*hind beneath and beyond the image
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ mimicry and strategies of survival
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ concealment and adaptation
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ seen and withheld
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ do you want to be seen or not seen
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ the surface tension holds
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ the pattern and its undoing

thickened with resin
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ each colour has its temperament
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ each print unrepeatable
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ each impression shaped by breath angle
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ timing
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ intention
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ a slow ritual leading to a fast act
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ months of readiness for a moment of contact
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ heavens to earth
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ earth to paper
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ paper to cloud
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ cloud and stone
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ the palette departs
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ marbled colour fields
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎droplets of pigment
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ shaking water
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ distorting pattern
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ slicing print
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ an uncontainable energy

tension reads as haunting
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎accidental
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎spectral
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎controlled  surrender
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ a vapourous cloud and stone
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ feather and weighted brick
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎a fade to black and white
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ as above so below
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎what happens within
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎echoes what happens without
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ space light and air
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ matter water here
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ and a gall bladder blood let
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎breathing releasing
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎body fluttering with the wind
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎exposed to weather and time

as pigments jump to paper
 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ inner and outer states
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ defuse punishment
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ gestures of trust
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ granting permission for
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ process and meaning
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ to converge
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ body and world
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ breath and pattern
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ as the ink leaps
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ as the breath holds
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ to surface tensions
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ a correspondence
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ as the cut reveals
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ as the air passes through
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ making visible what insists
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ on being felt
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ as the prayer lilts
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ as the paper lifts

intervention and the inherited logics of ebru

Outside Mercer Union, Cloudstone [Battal], a large vinyl work by Alize Zorlutuna stretches across the billboard space. Zorlutuna’s practice began in 2012 through apprenticeship with a traditional ebru master, studying the devotional art of paper marbling as a form of repetition, patience, and discipline. A decade later, they began to intervene in that lineage, working with non-traditional colours, hybrid materials, and altered formats that challenge what devotion can look like. The break is not a rejection but a transformation: a queering of technique and thus of inheritance itself. When the primary pattern for Cloudstone [Battal] was made, Zorlutuna was in Uzbekistan, returning to a landscape of ancestry, with the work now carrying that charge of reckoning and release, located in ritual.

On the surface, their gestures of incising recall Lucio Fontana’s spatial cuts, yet rather than breaking away from form, Zorlutuna allows the inherited logics of ebru to softly guide the rupture. The act of cutting, in this context, becomes a way of looking, of asking what lies behind what we see, how images can both conceal and disclose—a formal gesture that mirrors postcolonial practices of questioning visibility, legibility, and the frameworks that determine meaning. In this sense, Cloudstone/Battal invites viewers to consider how surfaces are made, and what might be waiting, just beyond them.

— Chiezda Pasipanodya