Giving Voices features documentation on four of Erkan Özgen's video works dealing with war, violence, and trauma—beyond the boundaries of the political, within the dimension of the private and the human. It includes essays and an interview with the artist lead by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hilde Teerlinck.
By deciding not to show images of violence and war, Özgen gives a voice to individuals and objects. Witnessing becomes a way of understanding and also resetting memory. How can we feel the realities of war, conflict, and violence? What are the cultural and social implications of war and violence, and how does society respond to war? These are some of the questions raised by Özgen's work and addressed here by social anthropologist Rik Adriaans, psychologist Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, curator Özge Ersoy, as well as writer Han Nefkens, and in conversations between the artist and Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine galleries, and curator Hilde Teerlinck.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, from November 13,.2018, to April 24, 2019.
Erkan Özgen (born 1971 in Derik, Turkey, lives and works in Diyarbakir, Turkey) graduated from Çukurova University Painting Department in 2000. He works on video based installations and has participated in group exhibitions in Turkey and abroad. Most of his recent films deal with migration and human rights.
