SaraNoa Mark

Sultan Han rises in the distance out of the vast semi-arid Konya-Aksaray Plain, almost as a mirage to a weary traveler. An essential stop along the Silk Road it is the largest preserved caravanserai built by the medieval Seljuks of Rum. This former center of vibrant material exchange once more serves as a location for cultural interaction through the group exhibition Carved Conversations. The exhibition brings together artists from Turkey and international artists in active dialogue with the site. 

The 13th-century monument was initially constructed to host a community of traveling traders and pilgrims of different cultural backgrounds, brought together by its location on the most important medieval land route across Anatolia. It was constructed as a miniature idealized city, with a mosque in its center, surrounded by rooms for entertainment, lodging, food production, healing services, exchange, and conversation, and inhabited by pilgrims, traders, craftspeople, cooks, entertainers, storytellers, musicians, grooms, religious professionals, mystics, servants and enslaved individuals. Interactions among these people could only have taken place in this environment, one that existed within the local, natural, and social landscape. These exchanges transformed the daily lives of people throughout Eurasia, and spread the broader understandings of geography, religion, economics, political thought, and advances in science and technology that created the modern world. 
After centuries, collapses caused by strong winds and earthquakes, and changes over multiple restorations, the Sultan Han monument still attracts curious travelers. Carved Conversations, an exhibition of sculpture, multimedia, and textile artworks forges a new community of artists with diverse cultural and visual perspectives. This community, like the one that inhabited the site centuries ago, is tied together by hospitality and shared interactions, within the intricately carved architecture of the caravanserai. The exhibition explores the construction of collective memory, and the role of geography in determining locations that remain worthy of pilgrimage and preservation. The public is invited to take part in these conversations.