10 Questions with Gulbin Ozdamar Akarcay

Gulbin Ozdamar Akarcay received B.A., M.Sc., and a Ph.D. in Journalism from Anadolu University in Turkey. Her B.A. graduation project titled “Faces of Prisoners” was exhibited at IFSAK İstanbul Photography Days in 2002. She worked for a year at Anadolu Agency in 2002. She studied at The Academy of Performing Arts, Film and TV School (FAMU), Department of Still Photography in Prague for a year in 2006. She was one of the curators of the Intimate Revolt exhibition, which was funded with a grant from FAMU, the Cultural Ministry of Lithuania, and the Czech Republic in 2007-2008. This exhibition took place in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Turkey and consisted of 10 photographers from 10 countries. She opened “Faces of Prisoners”, “Narodni Divadlo”, “Children of Maticni” as her personal exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions “66-II”, “Spirit of Prague”, “Six Czech School Photography”,” History of Photography Is History of Miserableness”, “Living Woman Self-Portrait”, “It Seems as If Anything I Feel”. She was the producer of “Merter Oral’ın Ardından”. She was selected for the World Press Photo (WPPH) Seminar organized in Turkey in 2002-2004. Her photo story “Children of Maticni” was published in WPPH Magazine and in the book titled Photojournale Connections Across a Human Planet. She established the Living Woman Photography Group, which advocates for women and children who are victims of violence. The group has made projects, opened exhibitions, and presented the photographs between 2011-2022. She opened an exhibition titled “My Self-reflexive Diary: The Balkans” at the Toronto Contact Photography Festival 2017. She participated in Seeing Across Disciplines, the IVLA 2021 Virtual Art exhibition, and has taken part in many national and international exhibitions between 2018-2022. She published articles in some edited books, journals, and magazines (2001-2022). She held a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for Ethnography at the University of Toronto Scarborough in 2016-2017.

www.gulbinozdamar.com | @gozdamarakarcay

ARTIST STATEMENT

In all of her work, both academic and creative, she tries to understand the cultural, ideological, environmental, and sociological order of the world, as well as the ordinary structures of daily life, by reading, using, and producing images, which will hopefully open up new doors to the future. She uses photography to conduct visual ethnographic research and produce photographic installations that are highly conceptual. As an artist, teacher, and curator, She endeavors to hold in balance the artistic with the anthropological, sociological, and theoretical. Many of the photo essays, installations, and social-artistic projects She has launched concern social issues: projects protesting violence against children and women; installations about cultural diversity, gender, mindset, and the environment; and her work with an all-women photography collective as an activist and curator. The conceptually-driven photography She produces is socially embedded and theoretically engaged.

Narodni Divadlo | Project Description

Narodni Divadlo, or National Theatre in Prague, is known as the national monument of Czech history and art. The National Theatre in Prague, apart from the Czech Philharmonic and National Gallery, belongs to the most important Czech cultural institutions with a rich artistic tradition that helped to preserve and develop the most important features of the nation the Czech language and sense of a Czech musical and dramatic way of thinking. Today the National Theatre consists of three artistic ensembles, opera, ballet, and drama, which alternate, in their performances in the historical building of the National Theatre, in the Theatre of the Estates, and in the Theatre Kolowrat. All three ensembles select their repertoire not only from the rich classical heritage but in addition to local authors, they focus their attention on modern world output. The National Theatre is the embodiment of the will of the Czech motion for its national identity and independence.

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. Why did you decide to be an artist in the first place? And how did you develop into the artist you are today?

I was born in 1980. I studied journalism and came across photography while studying at the university. From the very first moment I was introduced to a camera, I felt like this magical medium provides me to express myself creatively as a woman. I've always thought that by taking photos, I could not only comprehend myself but also understand society. I've always been curious, inquiring, and brave enough. I thought I could carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. That is why photography became an essential passion. At the beginning of my career, I produced photo interviews as an ideal of discovering documentary photography in search of society. Then, I started focusing on gender issues as photography could be an instrument for conceptual understanding social issues in general. Both modes of production worked simultaneously. When I was 17, I first held a camera, and producing an image made me feel wonderful as I belonged to a creative, privileged community. I've always questioned social issues, like I query the geography I live in. To engage in socially objectionable issues, to focus on others, using the image as a tool to show the resistance regarding gender issues, producing works in collaboration with women photographers, and sharing them with the public are the main projects I have realized as a photography artist today

You come from a journalism background. What is your aim as an artist?

Journalism taught me how to do research and query whatever I wondered about. It helped me to gain awareness of social issues and introduced me to photography as well. It also instilled the utopia that photography could be an apparatus for social change when it meets with the masses as an image. Almost every photo I’ve produced has this social sensitivity aspect. Wherever I go around the world, social issues become subjects that I need to follow. That is the reason why I acted with the same sensitivity when I was capturing photos of gypsies in Prague, documenting everyday life in a gay neighborhood in Toronto, producing images influenced by the freedom struggle of Iranian women, or focusing on gender issues in Turkey. 

You already have a long career and have participated in several projects and exhibitions. How would you define yourself as an artist today? And how did this definition change over the years? 

I’ve participated in many national and international projects and exhibitions. As a photographer/scholar/artist raised in Turkey, FAMU (Film and TV School), where I studied between 2006-2007, changed my perspective on documentary and conceptual photography. The legendary language of Czech photography and amazing professors has an enormous impact on my ways of seeing other photographers gathered to study together from various geographies. As I was walking down the street, I heard piano sounds echoing from a church as street musicians’ enthusiastic songs mixed together, and avant-garde theatre and cinema in Prague reinforced my creativity. I’ve learned that I could create my own language by experimenting with different styles in my photographic expression. My black and white photos I’ve developed in the dark room, and studio images I’ve produced with a medium format digital camera, enabled me to improve myself technically. Most importantly, my studies at FAMU encouraged me to try new ways to express myself in a more creative and genuine form. In the beginning, while my artistic production continued in a modernist version of documentary photography, after FAMU, when I got back to Turkey, I started to produce with the personal perspective of subjective documentary photography. For me, documentary photography is meant to be sincere. Therefore, subjective reality takes the place of objective reality. I don’t see photography as mere technical stuff. For me, whether photographs are conceptual productions or documentary photography projects, I believe that photographs are produced with affection, honesty, sincerity, and empathy. The people that I take pictures of are not just anybody or objects in front of the lens. On the contrary, they are effective characters that give a deep look to the lens. My camera does not act superior to anyone. In my photos, you can easily catch my effort in trying to understand them. As an image producer, I’m interested in anything that hurts, excites me, arouses my curiosity, and whatever causes deep sadness. Therefore I run after them as possible as I can. I guess, I’m a die-hard romantic.  

In your statement, you mention "using photography to conduct visual ethnographic research." What are your main fields of interest for your research?

In 2007, while I was studying at FAMU, as a visiting Ph.D. student, at the library, I came across the writings of Howard Becker, and books of Sarah Pink and Douglas Harper. I realized how I could use photography as part of visual research methods. Then, when I came back to Turkey, I finished my dissertation titled “An Ethnography Study for Ethnographers and Photographers: Photo-Ethnography of Hacı Bektas Veli Festival”. The main goal of my dissertation was to understand how we could use photography in ethnographic research and demonstrate the difference between photographers and professional ethnographers in the field while approaching a particular social phenomenon. Then, I started to use photography as a data-collecting tool in my ethnographic studies. My studies included photo elicitation, reflexive photography, photovoice, and autoethnographic photo document. In the 2016-2017 academic year, I was a postdoc fellow at the University of Toronto-Scarborough at the Ethnography Centre. I did research on families who migrated from Turkey and made mixed marriages in Canada and used the photo elicitation method in that visual ethnographic study. In general, I can say that I focus on identity, gender, and urbanscape. Nowadays, I’m writing a book on visual sociology, hoping to be published in 2023. 

Let's talk about your series, "Narodni Divadlo." What are the main ideas behind this series, and what messages were you trying to convey?

When I was in Prague, I observed two main subjects for dwellers in Prague: One of them was theatre, and the other was gypsies. Theatre is invaluable for the Czech people. Gypsies were the subject matter of a social issue debated in the public domain. That is why a part of me was working on one of the most magnificent and the largest theatre in the country, while the other part of me was working with the gypsies of Usti Nad Labem. Narodni Divadlo is the national theatre. The theatre is in one of the most wonderful buildings of Prague, dating back 1800s. Narodni Divadlo has a crucial role in the construction of Czech national identity. In 2007, I had the privilege to take photographs both backstage and downstage. I photographed classical ballet performances, operas, and avant-garde shows. I was nervous in the backstage at the beginning, but then tolerance of almost all artists helped me to narrate their stories, I think. I would be very happy, after all these years, I wish I had the opportunity to exhibit my works of Narodni Divadlo and Children of Maticni in Prague. 

What was the most challenging part of your project?

The most challenging part of the project was not speaking the Czech language. I would like to have conversations with the artists. I did not know Czech; they did not know English. The backstage was as active as the stage itself. Sometimes, you need to know where to stand, to stay in the shade, so you don’t break the flow as a photographer. I learn a lot in every project I do as a photographer. This is the most exciting part of documentary photography. It changes you, helps you to meet new people, teaches, finds a way to eliminate any bias you have or overcome prejudice, and most importantly, you become a witness. 

What do you see as the strengths of this project, both visually and conceptually?

In this project, there is an observation of an outsider. My gaze in this project is like an audience. I’m both an observer and a watcher. For a moment, I’m backstage in the most private space with them, like I’m a ghost not to break their rhythm. They take a glance at me. However, at that time, I’m their spectator as an outsider. Photographically, it was one of my most creative projects, and it was a threshold that destroyed the modernist vision of perfectionism inside me. 

You work both as an artist, teacher, and curator. In your opinion, where is the art world going? Do you see increasing democratization and more openness?

The art world is going digital. Does it create a new language? Yes and no. Medium is changing, and the message is being affected by medium, but it is questionable if this creates a new language. For instance, new media. It displays images produced in the past on the plane of space-time as moving images through algorithms and artificial intelligence. When we look at current art, it takes creativity and skills away from the artist’s hand. While rejecting traditional, replaced it with vernacular. The idea, but conceptually become prominent. The biggest problem with this was that the works produced started to be similar concepts and objects. Photography is becoming more and more digital. Not the photographer who shoots a photo frame but the one who creates or makes a photo frame on the computer becomes an artist. Images that are not really existing, are produced by photo manipulations. This completely undermined the ontological relationship of photography with reality. Images produced conceptually are important means of production, particularly in the hands of feminist artists. Images still hold power for criticism as well as resilience. However, so many images have been produced that our relationship with images is weakening. 
The role of art in democratization is inevitable. In societies ruled by totalitarian regimes, the artist must be brave enough. A work you produce might put you on trial. Whatever tool you use, a word you say, or a message you give, unfortunately, can cause you trouble even when someone does not just like it. It might seem that new media has changed it a bit, but oppressions and sanctions still exist in most societies. 

As a teacher and activist, do you think art still has a relevant role in addressing the most pressing issues of our world? And how do you inspire your students to research and deal with these issues?

I still keep my faith in art romantically. Because, in most of the resilience, images are still being used. Images still have an impact on people all around the world in sharing their problems in the public sphere, and these images may create a movement in public opinion. For instance, the refugee issue. The works produced by artists focusing on refugees and immigration issues can cause some changes in public opinion. Unfortunately, art projects that do not have a strong civil society and public support may remain silent and invisible so that the power to change is being taken away. Powerful civil society can only exist in democratized societies. The commodification of art is another problem. I always do my best to provide a safe environment for my students so that they can speak freely. Thus, they could have an environment where they can focus and discuss the problems of the age in which they live. I teach them how they can do research. First, they find the topic they will work on, then reach the concept with in-depth research and choose the tools to visualize it. They know their social and environmental awareness will make them more effective as a creative class. 

Finally, what are your plans for the rest of 2022 and for the future in general? Anything exciting in terms of exhibitions or future projects you want to share with our readers?

Recently, I started a project about the resistance of Iranian women. In fact, I think it is the fate of all Middle Eastern women living in the region. My new project consists of conceptual photos. I’ve already produced the initial series. Another project I think about is ways for refugee women to build a “home” in Turkey. My research/project question is: “How do refugee women establish the family as “home” in their houses?”. I’ll try to find an answer to this main question. I’ve started to do research for this documentary photography project. My plan is to publish this project as a book. I have plans to hold an exhibition in the UK in the following year. My final goal is to finish my book on visual sociology and publish it in 2023.