Nihat Karatasli (1988-2021) is an interdisciplinary artist whose videos, animations, sculptures, performances and installations explore the interconnections between humans, nature and technology. 

A lecturer, columnist and teacher, Karatasli is also co-founder of the Hüzün Archive, supported by Koç University (Istanbul). His work has featured in group exhibitions in Istanbul, Seoul and Los Angeles and he holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

He has participated in several film festivals, including the 7th Mammoth Lakes Film Festival in California, Soy Meta in Shanghai, 37th Kasseler Film Festival and Stand Firm, Stand Here @ Ohklahomo, Chicago.

A tree to weigh, a tree to measure. Multimedia, 3D animated GIF y neon lights. Variable Sizes. 2018.   

This piece was originally conceived and installed by the artist in a carob tree, a very common tree throughout the Mediterranean that takes its name from the Arabic word kharrūb. Carob pods have been used for different purposes throughout history: an aphrodisiac, a gem-measuring tool, or a source of basic nutrition. Precisely the word carat (unit of mass and purity of precious stones) comes from the Greek word keration which means carob. The carob tree, together with other native species such as the olive tree, the almond tree, or the fig tree, appear recurrently as powerful symbols of the Mediterranean. Karatasli uses the tree as a representation of primeval nature and, from that essential place, incorporates classical culture and the contemporary maelstrom through images and devices charged with meaning. In A tree to weigh, a tree to measure, the famous sculptures of The Slaves by Michelangelo Buonarroti are converted into an animated GIF and played on modern screens supported by one of those trees, which is also shown crossed by powerful bars of light white. This work builds an intense allegory of contemporaneity where all of us appear as those new slaves who maintain a complex relationship, more dialectical than symbiotic, with the environment that welcomes us and provides us.