Murat Bulut Aysan

Nazar Works
2012 - 2014

Nazar is the Turkish term for what is traditionally known as the evil-eye in the SWANA region. My Nazar series explores the use of this age-old device in various contemporary applications.

Nazar™ is a fictional product intended to provide relief from symptoms relating to the evil-eye. I wanted to explore how people are often ready to accept some sort of protection (whether that be ancient-totem or modern-medicine) when the form it takes is appealing, reassuring or traditionally familiar. This resulted in the idea for a Nazar pill one can take to ward off the so-called evil-eye as a remedy for anxiety, paranoia and insecurity. I developed some ideas for the subsequent packaging and publicity material as well as the formal brand identity of Nazar™.

Nazar™ has been featured in the following articles:

renk-magazin.de (Jan. 2016)

cut-online.com (Jan. 2016)

The logo and packaging design were exhibited as two posters at the entrance of the Centre Ambulatoire D'Addictologie Psychiatrique (CAAP) as part of the Haute Ecole D'Art et Design's houhouHAHA Art au CAAP Work.Master program.

There are many other possible applications for where protection from Nazar might be suitable, desired or useful:

City-wide CCTV infrastructures are an investment which cost money to set-up and maintain. My suggestion here is to protect these 'assets' by placing Nazar stickers and/or tiles on the CCTV camera structure itself. Of course there is also an irony here in terms of 'powerful gazes' as well as parallels concerning the reliability and quality of the 'protection' offered in each case.