Gönül Paksoy: From Collection to Creation

Rezan Has Museum in Kadir Has University will be hosting Gönül Paksoy’s special bead collection during the conference. The visitors can enjoy the exhibition between February 22nd and 23rd where prehistoric and contemporary beads as well as the designs of Paksoy will be displayed. Wearing individual accessories to differentiate yourself from others is an important cultural stage in the life of a human-being. One of these accessories is jewellery. Beads and bead necklaces are among the very first examples of such jewellery. At the beginning beads were designed for religious purposes including spells and amulets. Still meeting these purposes the beads were then regarded as a means of bedecking and prestige.

The materials used in Gönül Paksoy’s Bead Collection can be grouped into five: bone, mollusk shell, stone, glass, and mine. The extent of their use varies depending on the era that is represented by the beads. The most primitive beads were made of bone or mollusk shell. After they had passed to a settled life however, modern people started to produce more aesthetic and elegant beads which are made of glass and mine using both precious and semi-precious stones.

Glass and ceramic beads represent the richest and the most diversified group of beads in Paksoy’s Collection. Glass beads were widely used especially in the iron era thanks to its plasticity and affordability. This tradition has even survived to this day without disregarding the technological developments it has undergone.

As a matter of fact, bead is a typical gift for dead people. This is the main reason why it is so commonly found in the collections. People would use beads to embellish the deceased bodies in the funerals. They would bury them with elegant jewels and clothes. In Gönül Paksoy’s Collection you will easily realize that many and the most outstanding beads are of Urartu –East Anatolia origin. The people of Urartu used to put the deceased bodies in chamber tombs under the ground.