NEIGHBOR
2018, Two-Channel Video Projection on Canvas, 17 minutes 30 seconds, Color, Stereo Sound
Akar, a young multimedia Turkish artist working across video and photography, and exploring the narrative relation between the production of images and political subjectivity. In a recent work, the two-channel video installation, Neighbor (2018, 17’) and the centerpiece of this exhibition, Akar is problematizing from the outset, the positions of author, subject and image in the hierarchy of storytelling. In the plot of Neighbor, unclear at first whether real or fictitious, the artist meets in his native city of Ankara, Arif, a young Syrian child, who has immigrated to Turkey in 2015, escaping from the traumatic destruction of Aleppo.
Neighbor was part of the official selection of the 2019 SPE Media Festival.
Recent Work & Exhibitions
WHERE ASIA MEETS EUROPE
Photographic objectivity is forced into doubt. The photographs in this project were taken at a location that has the utmost significance: Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, where Asia meets Europe.
The fog erases any possibility of identification. Hand-made bridges that link the two continents are visually challenged by nature in a world where borders and displacement are ever-present, and further challenged by photographic objectivity.
Was supposed to be a bridge to humanity and love, but only managed to build up the highest walls; thanks to wall-makers.
