GROUND 0101 (The Fall Issue)

third - they reclaim these songs.
For me it was quite surprising;
I was brought up in Stuttgart
which has a different kind of immigration
model to that of Berlin.
In Berlin it was at that time (2003)
still quite segregated - here I felt
more Turkish than I ever felt before.
This changed to a certain
amount eversince.
In the end I used a camera which
captured the aesthetics of the
night shot, which I liked. It focuses
on these teenagers with
the city in the background and
it could be anywhere. I did the
recording in 2003 and was not
sure how to present it; whether
I would even show it or if it was
just for my parents.
I decided to break it up with
something more like a still life.
Therefor I filmed the drums in the
rain and the harmonica played by
the wind. That is how it became
more of a city portrait; the instruments
are linked to the people.
It is the first time I used the concept
of instruments played by
nature, they are literally linked
to the people you see in the video,
they are singing the songs of
their ancestors and these instruments
are natural played by the
nature. This is the first video with
a human embodiment in it; after
that I only used the environment
and the instruments themselves.
HTN. I saw your piece Makramé
almost as a trick; it seems oriental
but it is actually the atomic
structure of iron. It is almost as if
you are daring people to put you
in a box.
NA. That is true but it was actually
done unconsciously, although
I wanted to use oriental
connotations. Makramé originally
came to Spain and Europe via
the Arabic culture. In my youth
in south Germany during the
80’s all the German families had
Makramé at home. I wanted to
use a material that has strong
male connotation like the wire
cable to knot something that is
female connotated. While knotting
the wire cable it showed its
own dynamic and character.
The knotted pattern was the
profile of the wire itself, so the
material was knotting a self-portrait.
HTN. I also thought this about
Significant Other.
NA. A few years ago; still some
people used to think I was a
male artist because of my name.
I liked the idea that I’m not producing
particularly female works.
Everyone thinks differently about
it but for me it was liberating; I
liked not being put in a box.
E.g. in the video Nevin Aladag interviews
Nevin Aladag, in which
a male actor is representing me,
I was only adding my voice and
he was lipsinking it.
In the preparation of the work
I was sending questions to
friends, to realtives and colleagues.
I was reading the questions
and the answers and soon
it became clear that it is fragments
of possible identities. It is
an invitation to the Interviewee
to speak through my voice and
through the body of the actor in
a symbiotic way.