Murathan Özbek’s series portray and frame his journey, with strong or fragile elements, at the heart of the memories he kept his whole life. The pieces he created from the common points of photography and memories make visible the moments that are reconstructed in his mind with the passage of time. Özbek’s journey toward his memories, brings him a kind of completeness; his “past moments” are pieces of his present self. These moments have meanings ahead of its time, just like characters living in different memories.
These portraits illustrate the subjects’ multilayered identities; splitting the scene from outer self and inner self, each portrait moves the viewer underneath the observable world into the murky tunnels of the subconscious. This method of presentation invites the viewer to draw conclusions between persona and the actual self with all the memories and baggage the person carries. The depiction of one’s entity as “I” and “me”, both as the subjective knower and the object that is known, readily but tacitly provides a cognitive space for interpretative thought and encourages the viewer to meditate on the complexities of the human psyche.
Fotoistanbul
September 30 to October 22, 2017
Istanbul, Turkey
