Join us for our monthly resident’s circle on March 11th at 6pm!
Distant, Intimate Images: The violence in the archives
belit sağ
Screening program followed by a conversation with Maarin Ektermann
11 March 2020 // 18:00 – 19:30
Kai cinema
Free admission
“An image-maker is one who has been undone by images… The narrative of visual unravelling, of being undone is a journey of phases in which the image we are immersed in is invalidated.”*
Images touch us in ways we can not foresee, they speak to us, they reveal and conceal. belit sağ’s work concerns itself with the layers of violence inscribed on the images in her own and in the publicly available online archives. Through her collages and texts, she reveals processes where institutional and mainstream narratives are produced. She disrupts these structures through re-telling and re-framing in her videos. She treats images instinctively, they breath, they feel, they touch. Through activating these archives, she not only examines the structures of power inscribed on the images, but also opens up possibilities for a different way of viewing and proposes an unlearning process.
belit’s ongoing artistic and moving image practice largely focuses on the role of visual representations of violence in the experience and perception of political conflicts in Turkey, the Netherlands and Germany. She’ll be showing several short video works and will have a conversation with curator Maarin Ektermann.
* Modified quote from From Criticism to Critique to Criticality (Irit Rogoff, 2003).
Original: “A theorist is one who has been undone by theory… The narrative of theoretical unravelling, of being undone is a journey of phases in which the thought we are immersed in is invalidated.
belit sağ is a videomaker and visual artist living in Amsterdam. She studied mathematics in Turkey and visual arts in the Netherlands. Her background in moving images is rooted in her work within video-activist groups in Ankara and Istanbul, where she co-initiated groups such as VideA, karahaber, and bak.ma. She has completed residencies at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York and at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, among others. Her ongoing artistic and moving image practice largely focuses on the role of visual representations of violence in the experience and perception of political conflicts in Turkey, Germany, and the Netherlands.