Contingent Identities, 4-21 May 2009 Depo, Istanbul

Nisrine Boukhari
“The Veil”, video, 3’47’’, 2007

Do all visual artworks need to explain by words?
This monochrome explains briefly all the words
Is it important to define again this veil who cover all the meanings..?

Tunc Ali Cam
“Tunc Ali Cam Museum” Demo, 7’49’’, 2008

Museum is under construction since 2006.

Mohamed Abdelkarim
“I like the minute I hate the minute “, video installation, 3’47’’, 2007

Before the minute and after the minute . changed the thing .and coming Reactions when The moment of collision between the tower and plane
And fighter plane in Iraq area
Each act of the reaction of an equivalent amount in a counter in the direction
But now Different equation in world politic
I used the symbols from my culture for express about disaster in minutes
Awareness of time and continuity.

Suat Ogut
“Uncanny encounters” , sculpture, 150 x 140 x145 cm , 2009

As a representative for the body' s turning into a social figure; making the figures telescope and people' s beliefs and personalities transforming into a chaotic from in the social process have an important factor for being handled ironically in this work.
First of all , by combining the silhouettes of the figures in a way, their physical activities are made anonymous. The physical language in the action what the body gets about the soul is more important than belief or disbelief. What is aimed at by making the physical movements , which are meaningful on their own, telescope is trying to decode the language and show how much symbolic is the action.

Goran Micevski
“Untitled”, color photograph 100x140 cm, 2008

The photo depicts a naked, uncircumcised man (artist), looking at a mirror after taking a shower. The towel on his head falls in a manner that it resembles a scarf worn by muslim women in order to conceal their faces.
The work deals with several issues:
- relationship between male and female body
- relationship between physical and body in art
- relationship between western and eastern body
and the seizmic shifting between all these categories.

“East”, slide-show, 2009

In a few passages of his book “My name is red”, Orhan Pamuk tells about medieval miniature painters and how they would, after hard night’s work and convinced that it would, if not prevent, at least delay inevitable blindness, go onto rooftops of their workshops and greet the morning sun; not facing east but west.

I asked all the participants of the Istanbul workshop to pose for this photo. We went onto a rooftop of an Istanbul apartment building and faced the morning sun looking at the western darkness.

Kukka Paavilainen
Untitled (Helsinki), photography 75x100cm, 2006

Untitled (Kemal Country Istanbul), photography 75x100cm, 2009

This view is from inside me. I approach through it with the hope that my life will change.

Keti Stoiljkovic
“I still love you”, film, 45’, 2009.

With humor, poetry, singing and stories Serbian women of two generations tell of their lives.
The film is a reminder of the transience of our lives and their identities.

Leona Dodig
“Balkan Hotel Series”, photographs, dimensions variable, 2009

The project is an attempt to put the past behind and move forward with warmth and humor. It is not the first admission of and confrontation with a complicated past; nor is it the ambivalent act of an erasure.

Rather, the photographs show, symbolically, the effects on the subject of monumental changes in society - from the Red Cross (of trauma, communist dictatorship and war), to the Green Cross (of the post-traumatic, post-communist ‘recovery’) at the pharmacy. The series contains diptychs, as the ‘gap’ between the diptychs shows the shift in times.

The ‘pharmacy’ is also written in English – for the increasing numbers of tourists curious about an exotic, chaotic place, now known amongst the European business people for its good night-life, or as Mladen Dolar writes: ‘Balkan is the subconscious of Europe.’

Michael Wojnar
“The Motivator”, performance object and documentation, 2007
"THANKS FOR THE CONVINCING LIES!", performance object, 2009
"THANKS FOR THE CONVINCING LIES!"
The world we live in seems to be built upon repetition. Politics and the media use constant repetition to be successful and brainwash. Most of the repeated thoughts are used to make us buy into or vote for a certain feeling or opinion. I felt it's about time to say "Thank you for the convincing lies!"...and repeat this over and over again...

"The Motivator"
The Motivator is an aid for artists, businessman, politicians or criminals and everyone who is stuck in a process. This is a prototype and once in mass production, the customer can choose between different motivation levels: a fluffy house shoe for, let's call it, the little kick or a skiing boot gives a huge motivation boost.

Darinka Pop-Mitic
“Solidarity”, mural, dimensions variable, 2009
In 1977 Students Cultural Centre has organized ’Latin America Week’. Group of Chilean artists, artistic brigade ’Salvador Allende’, in collaboration with students from the Fine Arts Academy have painted three murals. One has adorned wall of the Students Cultural Centre garden with the parole ’Solidarity of the Yugoslav people with the peoples of Latin America’, second was executed as part of the scenery for the artistic recital taking place in the great hall of the abovementioned institution, while the third one was done on the wall of the students’ coffee shop at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade.
First part of the project, ’Solidarity’, was the reconstruction on the part of the garden wall of the Students Cultural Centre coupled with the commemorative plaque. Second part of the project was realized in August 2008. as a part of the newly established annual exhibition in Banja Luka at the wall that is part of the abandon military compound of the Army of Republika Srpska. This is black and white reconstruction of the wall painting that was done in the Students Cultural Centre great hall. Third part of this project (same wall painting as in the second part of this project but in color or with a red tinge – like it was shot through the red filters) will be done in Istanbul.
If circumstances would permit I would love to do a research and try to find out if there is somewhere in the archives of the Faculty of Political Sciences photo of the said wall painting (since it is only mentioned in the Students Cultural Centre archive as a part of the report) since then I would be able to choose between reconstruction of the wall painting from the Faculty of Political Sciences coffee shop and color version of the Banja Luka mural.

Isabel Schmiga
“FOUND FOOTAGE, Assemblage 2007 - 2009
Mixed media, 30 x 40 cm

Untitled, Assemblage 2009
Spoons, marbles, false lashes
1,5 x 9 x 4 cm
Foundation of my work are shifts in context of insignificant elements from familiar situations. So far, i concentrate on transitions, idiosyncrasies of my everyday surroundings, collisions of seemingly irreconcilable opposites, substances and their emblematic qualities, the form, the word. Now at CONTINGENT IDENTITIES i am showing two art works: »FOUND FOOTAGE«, an assemblage made out of Atatürk posters and which i collected during my six month residence in Platform Garanti in 2006. And a second assemblage (untitled), which i made out of turkish coffee spoons, marbles and false lashes. Things that due to their permanent presence in everyday life appear negligible, become almost invisible. The rhetoric of the material, the multilingualism of familiar things and symbols, and the relationship of body and space contour my view in a double sense: they are literally motivation and motive of my enterprise of engaging with the ambiguity of familiar signs, thereby bringing to the surface firmly inscribed, hidden potentials of meaning.

Elmas Deniz
“The man who wants to be a tourist”, video 6’ 15’’, 2008
Copenhagen

The video shooted in Kopehnagen consist on tree parts; the tourists, the immigrants and image gathered from a boat trip displays Mohammed’s story
in subtitles replaced by the original translation.
The video focuses on “to name people, labelling visual features” by this way about language. The literal meaning of “tourist” and “ immigrant” refers
to people who are coming from any “foreign” culture but in reality points out the entities like tourist and imigrants by an uneven and unequal division.
The opportunities of globalisation and idea of mobility still adressess the class “elite”. The similar discrimination could be found in border politics.
To see the what is behind to name a random person on the street as a tourist or imigrant in her work artists borrows the same language, replaces
the labels, tourists and immigrants, at the final part of the video an ironic story accompanies images from the city.

Isidora Ficovic
“Polizei”, photographs, 60x40cm, Salzburg 2008

The photographs have been shooted at the Landespolizeikommando Salzburg where the action with Austrian policeman took place in 2008.
Juxtaposing opposite versions: a man and a robot is a rat-man, freely constructing everyday life, irrational, unexpected, uncanny, confusion, irony, mockery, actual, virtual, playing, spinning, changing static, unreasonable, money. What is political construction when I teach my dog to work on a computer? If the performance arts require the physical presence of trained or skilled human beings, who are demonstrating their skill, then I am performing consuming sexual energy every day. It is boring to be one person, it’s better to be everyone.
Jelena Radic/Eduard Freudmann
“The State of Exception Proved to be the Rule.A video documentary of the prevention of an exhibition”, 2008
Video, 90' Courtesy of the artists
On 7 February 2008 the exhibition Exception – Contemporary Art Scene from Prishtina presenting artworks by Albanian artists from Kosovo in Kontekst Galerija Belgrade was prevented from being opened by a clerical-fascist organisation, violent football hooligans and the Serbian police.
The incident was accompanied by a hysteric scandalisation campaign in Serbian media and marks another milestone in the continuous state of exception in Serbian public space after the overthrow of the Miloševic regime in 2000. It came into effect in 2001 when Belgrade's first Gay Pride Day was bloodily annihilated. In both cases also the subsequent realisation could not be accomplished due to the lack of security.
Along the narration of the tide of events the documentary video examines the traditions in which the incident is embedded, points out its political context, displays the media coverage, reflects its preconditions, meanings and impact and concludes that hatred reactions were being triggered by the fact that Serbian cultural racism could not bear having its stereotype of "uncivilized Albanians" being strongly contrasted and therefore nullified by perfectly articulated artistic positions of Prishtina's contemporary art scene.
Jelena Radic, Eduard Freudmann

Dr Protic
“Sessions”, video, 12’, 2007
Dr.Protic is an alter ego of the Belgrade based artist Vladimir Protic. He is addressing the disappointments of his generation in a mix of nihilism and humor.

Mark Brogan
“I’m the best...” video, 8’35’’, 2009
An artıst recently told me 'I don't want to find a job in whıch I have to give up (or change) my ıdentıty.' This statement made a powerful ımpression on me for a number of reasons. I come from a city (London) where people usually only speak about a professıonal or work-related identity. In the past 4 years, I have been 'gıvıng up' my identity, fırst by moving from London to Belgrade and then from beıng a studıo based artıst to setting up an outsourced call centre ın Belgrade as a means to live. Thıs call centre ıs now my studıo.
For this particular work, I used a recruitment process in my Serbian call centre in which I invited job applicants to apply by making and sending me web camera introductions recorded with web cameras. A second recruitment campaign followed thıs in the UK in which I posted an advert for a 'demonstrator' on an acting/extras website. I asked the British applicants, would-be actors and fılm extras, to read from transcripts taken from the Serbian web camera introductions, again recordıng these readıngs with a web-camera and sending them to me.
After thıs came online interviews conducted vıa Skype video calls during which I asked the Serbian job applicants to download and watch a film whilst we were online. This is a film I realised a year ago and ıt represents work in the call centre in a psychologıcally off-puttıng way.
In my work, I want to show how it feels when the idea of identity is erased by events outsıde our control. Also, I want to show that this isn't necessarıly the terrifyıng threat to the kernal of our being that we are always gıven to think and that thıs fear shouldn't make us clıng to ideas of identity based on nationality, ideology etc. At the end of the day, we can always depend on desire to maintain our grıp on the idea of identity.