STATEMENT

light painting

My artistic practise is built on camera-based works, consisting of documentary style or found video footage and installations combining video projections or screens with hand-made and found objects.

My works explore words and language as elements of building identity and the perception of reality for myself and for those seen as others, the identities of migrants as ‘mohajers’, endless migration, living in camps, and the narrative of a homeland for those who do not have one. I’m interested in what the way we talk about others and how we define them tells of us. According to Giorgio Agamben, when the nation-states are degenerating, refugee is the only category in which it is possible today to perceive the forms and limits of the political community to come. How we treat those who are lacking the full rights in the society also defines the society itself.

The aim of my practise is not to find interesting stories or personal histories, but to try to allow the complexity of different overlapping realities to be visible and understood. I am interested in the difficulty of understanding the whole picture. By allowing the simultaneous existence of often contradictory stories, I also admit that everyone has the right to determine their own story. On a larger scale, the micro-narratives in communities reflect the macro-narratives in societies.