HOOD Base
Creative Group
Artemis and Murat from HOOD Base are the seventh guests of our interview series, focusing on the production practices of artists from different fields. HOOD Base is an art hub and a creative team, designing content and events in arts & culture and creating projects based on music and visual arts.
Artemis: HOOD Base covers two structures, creative team and space. The team creates arts & culture-oriented projects for brands and organizations. We work with people from creative industries to create content and implement these projects. The team takes inspiration from this community and aims to give back to it. The space side hosts many events like exhibitions, concerts, community events, workshops, design markets and portfolio days. The event program primarily focuses on the first exhibitions of young artists, group exhibitions of collectives and performances from independent musicians.
Murat: It’s a little bit of all. HOOD Base is a non-profit art hub, creative team, and working unit. The space can be called HOOD Base and the team, just HOOD. A spontaneous community formed in a short time with the people we came into contact with, especially artists and creators. It’s truly a multi-layered structure that focuses on creating and sharing; the method and the economic model are variable.
We can say it’s a group of carbon-based organisms that are very happy to meet and collaborate with KAFT.
Eren Alıcı, Evdeki Saat
Stick-Con @Hoş Atölye
Nilipek
Caner Özyurtlu - Loş Sohbet @Karga
Murat: We started after the event FAZ in collaboration with Zuhal Müzik and an ICAF 2019 we participated in. It’s non-profit, it does not demand commission or rent from artists and producers on sales or for the use of space, workshops, performances, exhibitions, productions or any work is free of charge unless an organization or brand is involved, it will always be open for both ourselves and others to work, filled with a creative buzz. HOOD Base started with the idea of uninterrupted production and a sharing hive. With the dreams we had with Artemis and Dilara Özden, without knowing where they would lead.
Shortly after our first two exhibits, Alternatecyborg “Works” and Post Kolektif “Post Mortem,” while the “sanrı: benlik” exhibit was still going on, we came across disinfectants and masks. When the pandemic hit, HOOD Base was open for 3 months only. We went through a hard time, but we had a lot of support. Here, we need to mention Zuhal Müzik and Onaranlar Kulübü. We had 5-6 friends without whom we could never have created this space and structure, and who perhaps contributed more than us to its continuity, but they don’t want us to mention their names here.
In time, the team grew bigger. We met with wonderful people. What we started with as a non-profit art hub has unexpectedly turned into an expanding creative team, with creators in different fields and focusing on collaboration. This team started to dream of new things, write projects, and contact institutions that could provide financial support as well as artists and producers who could make these dreams come true. The projects and events that resulted from these communications funded the space. It goes on like this.
To wrap it up, the walls of the idea and space that no one believed in before January 4th -except for a few people; in fact, all the people and organizations we contacted, all artists, producers and everyone working in different fields; I think it is built with their voices, words, drawings, designs, good hearts, honesty, hard work, creativity, each of our ideas, dreams, efforts and the mutual excitement we share for the impossible.
Murat Güzelgün
Artemis: A lot of curiosity about the arts & culture environment in Turkey and the world, an unbreakable bond with the street where the most exciting forms of visual arts and music are born, the balance between the work produced for the market and the envisions of the team.
Murat: Personally for me… friends, friendships, habits, families, hot water bag, coffee, lots and lots of coffee, earphones, working hard, working even harder if you overdo, the possibility of Tom Waits giving another concert, the excitement for Radiohead’s new album, new pens notebooks and items, beanies and sunglasses, collaborations, dreams, meeting new ideas, new people and new creations, embracing thorns, embracing differences, a new season of This is England -or a movie, thermal clothes, more time with cem1, staying in touch with life, and for people, institutions and brands to support art-centered works more, the hope of one week global holiday celebrating unique flaws, wonderful asymmetry, perfect flaws, defects, mistakes and everything that is not perfect.
It was a great coincidence that you asked this question. We’ve been working on a merch design called “survival kit for introverts”. Soon I hope we can implement it with different concepts.
AlternateCyborg
Artemis: We write down most of the ideas that come to mind, so we always have the chance to go back. When I feel mentally unproductive, it feels good going back to movies, albums, artworks that influenced me.
Murat: I have a folder named “_lift. //”,full of ideas. Every visual, sound or text that stimulates my mind, I collect them there.
When we need a new idea, it is, in fact, when we overwork ourselves and can’t work or when other difficulties in life interfere with our work. There are times when we all feel hopeless, helpless, and think about quitting, but there’s always another one of us who gets us back on their feet.
We struggle a lot in these times but the best thing to do is trust our process, not to be too hard on ourselves, and not force ourselves. Sometimes fighting is, as in BOYBOY; Hit me again. Hit me again.” Recovering by taking a break, resting, refilling lives. Looking at the trees, thinking of pale blue dot, rereading “Yaşamaya Dair '', reminding ourselves of the “empty walnut”. Even if they bend, not completely closing off our receptors means to continue our connection with life and people, with hope.
It may seem too romantic or a forced metaphor but when the “outside the asylum” sign falls, our friends and I can pick it up and hang it on the door again.
Stick-Con / Hoş Atölye
Aga B
Murat: Just like I said. By staying in touch with life and creative productions. There are a lot of written and audio-visual resources available. We try to stay open to new ones. Bant Mag as a publication is always eye-opening. Juxtapoz, Brut Magazine, Behance, Banzai, @the.art.appreciation.society, @illustrastionartists, WOW x WOW, Art Wonderful, PICAME, Ballpitmag, @illustration_daily, TASCHEN, social media accounts and websites of our favorite bands, musicians and artists.
Most importantly, meeting young artists and witnessing their productions gives a natural update.
Uğur Acil @Thales
Artemis: HOOD Base is an individual who takes inspiration from meeting with friends & creators and their conversations; and then turning to its own, infusing what it learned and felt. It would try to understand everyone by speaking in their own language, but regardless of which language it would have a unique accent that caught your ear.
Murat: I think it would kind of look like Frankenstein’s creature. It has strong mental muscles but is also very fragile. A half-human, half-ghost that whispers, shouts, stutters, sometimes in Jamaican English, sometimes with a Northern English accent, needs to grow new ears to be heard, sings at unexpected moments, dances with a limp, writes with a shaky hand, paints by mixing colors, makes music in the kitchen, eats in the living room, hugs, occasionally crashes into walls, feels the need to dig tunnels and extend stairs into outer space.
This organism I imagined speaks with the scratchy accent of broken megaphones and types on a keyboard with missing or damaged keys. If I had to choose a living person, I think the closest one would be Dr. Tom Waits.
Stick-Con / Hoş Atölye
Ibulork
Artemis: I've been listening to NTS Radio lately.
Murat: I think Defansif Dizayn album is on repeat for me. Everyone in the team has different lists, but let me call it my Spotify "I spent my years" list, thinking about Defdiz.
Roadies
Nilipek
If you want to get in touch with us, the best way is emailing to we@hood-base.com