Winner of the OVNi SUD Emergences Award (2023), sponsored by the Circle of Friends of OVNi

Melisa wrote and directed a digital animated short film for a digital installation.
The work “Ramblings on Survival” emerges from the tension between the calm of the French Riviera and a world in crisis. The protagonist wanders along an abandoned, ghostly coastline. The hotels evoke both her place of residence and Trump’s overt colonial fantasy of transforming Gaza into “the French Riviera of the Middle East.” The “Elonsters”—robotic monsters that suck energy from humans through cables—embody the growing stranglehold of the technocratic elite. Warplanes signal the escalation of conflicts, while “investor ducks” represent an individualistic and materialistic culture, fueled by a spirit of paranoid survival. Against this unsettling backdrop, the work reflects on the questions the artist faced upon leaving activism in 2025, as fascism and violence were on the rise: what does it mean to survive in a neoliberal world, and how can one balance self-protection with support for others ?

Ramblings on Survival » was conceived in 2025 during the Creative Residency of OVNi Sud Emergence Award, of which Melisa Yağmur Saydı was the laureate. This artistic endeavor was made possible through the support of the Région Sud; the Creative Residency is further sustained by the generous patronage of the Hôtel WindsoR.