Ergenekon
Nevruz
Alkarısı
Dilek Ağacı
Karabasan
Kurşun Dökme
Titled Exploration of Oneself, this series of illustrations reflect my ancestral history. I have always been curious as to why my people had the traditions they did and the origins of my people. Each piece addresses either a specific myth or a tradition that is prevalent in Turkish culture. I think the reason why I originally wanted to do this was because a lot of my ancestral history is covered up with Islam and the explanations from my family were that we do those traditions because we’ve always done them. The history of the reason why has faded into a past filled with a culture shift once Islam had been introduced to the Turkish people. 
 The research that I did was hard to find. Everywhere I looked I was struggling to find appropriate and reliable sources and information definitely changed from source to source. Through this project, I felt more connected to my culture which is important to me because I used to feel disconnected from my culture all the time. This disconnection, fueled by my growing up in a different country, grew bigger as I grew older and eventually left my family to go to college. My family was the only tie I had to being Turkish in the past but this project really helped me strengthen that tie.
The most difficult part of this project was the research.  The research that I did was hard to find. Everywhere I looked I was struggling to find appropriate and reliable sources and information definitely changed from source to source. It was like history had been erased and there was not a lot of public knowledge about it. This I feel was made harder with the severe censorship that is going on in Turkey currently. But I was able to find a few books whose authors were people who were experts on Turkic Mythology and the history that was buried.