Us
Inspired by the tradition of alaminute photography, Ergun Turan and Sureyya Yilmaz Dernek’s Biz project consists of snapshots of 450 Istanbulites passing through the streets of Istanbul, taken against a gray background. The series, which began in the late 90s and continued for four years, was published in 2002 as an album titled Biz with a foreword by Orhan Pamuk. In 2008, a section from the series was exhibited at Istanbul Modern as part of the exhibition Human States.
Turan and Dernek’s work, which offers an inclusive view of the city’s inhabitants, is a ‘memory of Istanbul’ for all of us today, as it is intended in its conceptual framework. A selection of 13 photographs from the project is a guest of the festival program and brings us Istanbulites together after many years.
“Behind the personalities we cling to, behind the masks we put on our faces, there is a common ‘essence’ hidden in the depths of our being that connects us to each other. When we allow this deeper essence to emerge, we can no longer be enemies or envious of each other. Perhaps in this way we can see our differences not as a cause for conflict but as the richness of life; we can transcend the barriers of race, religion, language, nationality; we can accept all of humanity as our family and our planet as our home. This can also be a response to the narcissistic interpretation of the world, which does not allow those who are not like it the right to live, which puts itself and its needs at the center of the world. The secret is in the ‘other’. The other means difference, and accepting difference is a window to self-knowledge. On the streets of the city we are eye to eye with countless faces, ‘others’. This whole city is full of their voices, their pains and joys. It breathes in and out with them. A gray billboard in the corner of the city, people standing in front of the billboard. They are looking at us with all their stories. They are our world. They are us.”
ARTISTS
Ergün Turan and Süreyya Dernek
DATES
28 September – 13 October 2024
