fuat sonat
esrefoglu
Fuat Sonat Eşrefoğlu is an artist and designer working with material-driven and spatial narratives. His practiceranges from the transformability of exhibition spaces to the memory and materiality embedded in everydaystructures and objects. Beginning his career with exhibition installations at institutions such as Galeri Non and Galerist and the Istanbul Biennial, Fuat Sonat discovered early on that space can be transformed not onlyphysically but also conceptually.
Through interactive games, temporary structures, domestic installations, and micro-architectural models, heinvestigates the boundaries between body, objects, and narratives. In his designs for exhibitions such asCapsule and Nuit, he approaches architecture as an archive or a living organism, while in works likeConversations with Father and Realm of the Unconsoled, he explores personal and collective memory througheveryday materials and scenery.
Over time, his work has evolved into a more craft-oriented direction, incorporating techniques such as ceramics,woodworking, metalwork, and welding. Since 2022, under the name Studio Sonat, he has been producinghandcrafted lamps and lampshades that embody this approach. Each lighting object is unique and positionednot merely as functional design but as a bridge between illumination and storytelling. Fuat Sonat’s practiceinvites us to reimagine space as both a site of thought and a place of shelter.
studio
sonat
Studio Sonat was born out of personal memory, loss, and the desire to rebuild. “Sonat” was the name of my late brother and also happens to be my mother’s maiden name. This double meaning became, for me, a quiet attempt to make sense of the absence left behind by the men who departed from my life — my brother and my father — and a symbolic reminder of the intimacy that emerged between my mother and me in their absence.
In this sense, Studio Sonat is not merely a production space; it is a celebration of the potential held within emptiness and transformation. Light, form, and craft are the mediums through which this potential is expressed. Each handmade lamp is the result of a process of disassembly and reconstruction. While seeking new ways to reframe space, memory, and everyday objects, I focus on creating works in which loss can take shape — and meaning — as a tactile object.
Over time, this approach has also evolved into a new direction: jewelry making. These pieces begin with ceramic fragments that did not meet my expectations during the making process — pieces that were flawed, broken, or simply didn’t turn out as imagined. I intentionally break them and reassemble them. Likewise, leftover metal scraps from my lamp production process are welded and reshaped into new forms. Each jewelry piece becomes a quiet but determined act of renewal — a broken part transformed into a new whole. In this way, Studio Sonat becomes more than a studio — it becomes an ongoing practice of reclaiming space, mending memory, shaping light, and forging new connections with the present.