Inci Eviner
Harem, 2009
Single-channel video projection
Color, Sound
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
“Voyage Pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphore is
an album
of engravings created by Anton Ignaz Melling (1763–1831). The
Harem engraving
in the album is the picture of a space in which weird figures
of women roam. In contrast to the Orientalist tendencies of the period,
there are no dramatic or seductive expressions. Women, illustrated with almost
scientific
precision, look as if they are thrown out of time. My interest in
the Harem urges me to articulate these women beyond being objects of knowledge
by giving
them a voice and pushing them to reveal whatever they hide.
I think that with some intervention, these women of the Harem, who have
been imprisoned
by the scientific talent of the artist, can reveal relationships of
interest that are beneath the couple of reality and fantasy. I am trying to reach
my unrecognizable face in my own culture, through rhetoric figures, representations
and images constructed by the Western subject to represent and know
the East. By oozing into the Harem, I want to put in motion the untamable
and make these frozen images move to open up the possibility of resistance.
(İnci Eviner)
*1956, Polatli, Turkey, lives and works in Istanbul