The installation and performance Wishing Stones is linked to the artist Mehtap Baydu’s childhood memories of a traditional women’s ritual she had a chance to participate in but remembers in part.

During the ritual, Kurdish women would go journeys and try to make their wishes come true by repeatedly dropping a small stone the steep surface of a large stone, hoping, against all odds, that their stone will stick to the large surface of the other. The sites of pilgrimage to which women entrusted the secrets of their souls were most often in nature: the source of a river, a cliff face, a hill, a rocky plain, etc.

In those days when Mehtap Baydu took part in this ritual, the very idea of it and the peculiar procedure of conducting it indicated that it was difficult for women to express their true desires, thoughts, and feelings. Girls were more willing to trust a stone than their families. However, the ritual also indicated that the society in which they lived was unwilling and unable to satisfy their aspirations and needs.

Memories of this ritual sparked in the artist the need to revive it as a tribute to women’s desires and expectations which, although expressed more openly today, remain unfulfilled.

During the performance stones sent by many women from different countries will be displayed in their integrity and solidarity with the hidden wishes they carry.

“Where there’s a WISH there’s hope!” says Mehtap Baydu.