Simla İçeli : Please Hold

Please Hold explores suspended agency and the emotional weight of waiting—whether in bureaucratic systems, border control, or media-induced crisis fatigue. Set in a limbo where action and agency are deferred but tension builds, the series uses figurative paintings to reflect how individuals are held in unresolved states, stuck in a forced pause with no real power yet under the illusion of imminent progress.

This new body of work treats waiting as a socio-political condition—where perception, emotion, and delayed institutional timelines collide. Compositions of spaces become emotionally charged zones shaped by power and unresolved promises, where decisions are delayed, uncertainty lingers, and symbolic systems (signs, instructions, political pamphlets, mediated messages and billboard ads) confuse rather than clarify.

The convergence of intelligence and belief appears when rational systems—queues, bureaucracy, automated scripts—fail to offer feedback or safety, and individuals begin projecting meaning onto the silence: hope, paranoia, or conditioned patience. This is where imagination becomes survival.

Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism frames how hope tethers people to failing systems. Sara Ahmed’s Politics of Emotion shows how institutions manage fear and desire. Anna Potamianou’s view of Hope: A Shield in the Economy of Borderline States informs how psychic defenses form in prolonged limbo.