Creativity, Drumming, and Loving Lego

Bersun Erturk talks about discovering new passions and taking on challenges with a lot of imagination and originality

Tell us about your business – what inspired the idea and when did you start it?
Officially, I’m a creative director at DXB LIVE but unofficially I’m an audiovisual artist, musician, and Lego enthusiast. My talents started early in my childhood when I loved to draw and create and I expanded from 2D to 3D using Lego bricks.

This opened up an entire career path for me that saw me graduate top of my class at university, which brought me to Dubai where I conceptualise ideas for a living.

What do you consider to be your greatest personal and professional achievements?
Professionally, I can thankfully say I ticked all the boxes in the various fields of the creative and design world by winning awards in each category. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the greatest personal achievement as I’m learning new things every day, and after 40 I started pushing the boundaries in terms of adapting to new skills in technology and coming up with innovative concepts.

What were your biggest challenges? How did you overcome them?
As I’m a super creative person, I am constantly coming up with new ideas and sometimes finding the right people to implement them is complicated as I could see it clearly in my head. This forced me to push myself to learn how to do it on my own. For example, I’m creating an interactive and kinetic installation using coding that I have learnt recently. I’m able to create my own prototypes by connecting creativity and coding.

How do you manage the daily stress that comes with your job?
I work in events, shows and exhibitions which can be extremely stressful. I live by this quote that I read somewhere, “Deadlines are the best inspiration.” It’s kind of a cliché but honestly, it resonates with me.

I usually keep in mind my ideas and inspirations and often can just focus on bringing those ideas to life, usually when I’m drumming or cycling. It’s so important to have creative outlets or any type of outlet really to just destress.

If you look back over your life and career if you were given the opportunity to do anything differently, would you?
To be honest I think where I am right now is because I mixed different paths. I graduated as an interior architect and played in a band, then my career started to evolve and I jumped into the events world which pushed me to become an artist at the same time.

What is important to you?
I enjoy the journey rather than the destination. So, what is important to me is that I still like to learn new things and bring those new ideas to whatever I am trying to achieve whether at work or personally.

What is something that people don’t know about you?
I was born in Türkiye but moved to Libya, then Italy and then Kuwait all before I was 10 years old. This gave me the mindset of bridging the east and west together and has shaped who I am. My love for this region and the people is evident, and after spending my teenage years in Türkiye, I returned to the Middle East and have been here ever since.

Most of my creations and ideas have a mixture of different cultures and how I tie them together is all based on sensory experiences that remind me of my childhood.

Do you prioritise your mental health, and how?
Mental health is extremely important, especially in this day and age of continuous stress and deadlines. It is imperative that everyone finds outlets that work for them. In my case, I play the drums daily as they are the perfect release for me whenever I’m having a particularly hard day.

Another outlet of mine is building Lego models. I can switch off completely and just concentrate on the task at hand.

What piece of advice would you give to the younger generation that might want to follow in your footsteps?
My advice works for any field whether it’s a business or a creative outlet is that to succeed in anything you must immerse yourself completely in the concept and learn everything about it. Regardless of whether you work for someone or hire people to help, you already have a clear idea of the end product and are aware of what it entails.

This advice was given to me by my parents and especially my father who was a civil engineer but loved carpentry and learnt about every aspect of it. This is where I get my drive from.

Get in touch: @bersunofficial | bersun.com

This article appeared in Issue 002 – the Men’s Edition