Issue #21

Serkan Taycan and Yusuf Sevinçli had a conversation on various subjects from his approach to photography, and from the notion of "flaneur" to his latest works.

The workshop I was invited to was Studio Vortex which was led by Antoine d'Agata, a photographer who managed to live an unaltered life no matter where he has been to, who never cares about anything but himself, and who has come to terms with things and perceive what is going on around him through his own eyes. I went to Arles with a one-way ticket. It was a time when I was not sure where I would be or what would happen to me the next day, a time when I could not interfere with things, a time when my whole world felt like crashing down around me.

Family photos and on the manipulation of photographs...

I still hesitate to write about the ever-changing digital period in which we live, where we own and make use of digital products (But don’t hesitate to read this essay with such an introduction). It seems pointless to sum up the general characteristics of this period which we all experience. Moreover, the rapid change in technology might render some information I might give defunct in a couple of years.

When I was working on the present essay, the third part of a series, Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov was killed by Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, the police officer of Ankara Riot Police, in an exhibition opening. In this essay, leaving aside the humanitarian and political complications of this sinister event, I would like to think about Burhan Özbilici’s photograph which haunted us as it has recurrently appeared in social media.

Torun, one of Ankara’s art initiatives we follow with pleasure, ended its mission as a host for artists who want to make independent exhibitions in November 2016. By achieving to establish a much-needed “space for sharing” and gathering artists, exhibitions, viewers, in other words people who have similar dreams together for a long period, Torun will continue its activities through different media and practices that they feel the lack of.

Cansu Yıldıran’s project “Dispossessed” departs from her own experience as a woman from Black Sea, as a result of her facing the truth that women are not allowed to be a landholder in the plateaus of Black Sea; and questions the system annihilating the women, the existence, locality and sense of belonging of women inside this system.

Anastasia Soboleva’s project “Match a Match” created during Alejandro Chaskielberg’s “Documentary Experiments” workshop in ISSP 2016, presents an extremely personal and warm perspective to an objective matter; what is more, it is hats off to the importance of memories.

When Elif Yalım sent her photographs to Orta Format, we asked her to describe her works in more detail; and she told about poetry, music and movies rather than her photographs. Although this attitude may complicate things in the sense of understanding her works, come to think of Yalım’s photographs, it was in fact what it supposed to be. Then

Arsenic Eaters is Simon Brugner’s project through which he traces the consumption of arsenic in Austria, a practice that lasted till the first half of the 20th century.