Statement 2019
Transcription of the statement for the 21st Biennial
The presence of political or religious communitarian rituals in my work is partly because I am interested in group dynamics of different communities, the solidarity they create, the way they perform and what these can change in society at large. The key to understanding communities is the collective rituals or performances they carry out on a regular basis. The word “ritual” should not scare you. It is not used to describe ancient traditions. Rituals exist here and now.
The work Binibining Promised Land is a combination of my work as an artist and the work of the community. The main film is my representation of the beauty pageants they regularly perform. The three interviews are almost unedited conversations I had with individuals forming the community—therefore we hear their stories in their own words. The magazine covers are entirely their work. This is close to the solidarity spirit I experienced in their community and similar communities I work with in Turkey and elsewhere. So, I could say that this is a work through which I learnt to let go of the artist’s ego.
My interest in ghettos or private spaces, which are isolated from the public eye, began by looking at manifestations of communities in different places. For example, when I was doing a work about the wedding rituals of Turkish and Kurdish immigrants in Berlin, I realized that their wedding halls are hidden in large buildings, away from the eyes of the German public. When I asked a participant why they choose to stay closed in to these private spaces she said that is a voluntary isolation.
This is the same for the film you are seeing at the 21st Biennial: this beauty pageant is taking place at a nightclub, in the lowest underground floor of a giant bus station—the second largest in the world. The significance of this bus station is that, although it was made in the 1980s for the Israeli public to travel, they stopped using it because of attacks. This giant complex became a space which migrant communities can claim as their own and where they can express themselves freely, through their rituals and events. Here we can see the culture of these communities in a nutshell. Outside they transform themselves into the environment; inside they transform the environment to themselves.