Am 26. Juni 2018 um 18 Uhr ist die Fotografin Ceren Saner im Rahmen des Jour Fixe zu Gast an der BURG und spricht über die LGBTTIQ*-Bewegung, Kunst und Repressionen in der Türkei. Ort: Raum 103/104, Villa, Campus Design, Neuwerk 7
Ceren Saner is a visual artist based in Berlin exploring friendship, love and family within LGBTTIQ* everyday life in her hometown Istanbul as well as her new city of choice, Berlin.
isn’t it Love? Photo Showing & Talk Tour is a project where Ceren Saner is touring around Europe with her lecture performance in collaboration with 7Letters Collective. During the tour – entitled after one of her photography series – Ceren Saner will hold talks creative and political. She will speak about her approach to art both documentary and empathetic. Drawing on her artworks and experiences, Ceren Saner is giving a personal report on both the queer scene and the LGBTTIQ*-movement experiencing many setbacks due to current political developments within Turkey while also being subjected to intimidation and oppression.
„Love eludes from its form – love begins to fight against its own forms for being love again. It asks again, why should it be concealed, isn't it Love?
Between 2013 and 2014 isn’t it Love? photo series was a witness to a private queer-themed party chain that was periodically organized by a group of friends in Istanbul, Turkey. To respect the privacy of the subjects of those parties, and to feel and understand the existences in front of her, Ceren Saner looked more into the act of love rather than the faces behind it. Triggered by the fluidity of love and its liberating atmosphere she became part of in those moments, Saner found herself questioning notions such as true love, right way of loving, or solely – to love. Then she continued to follow her personal path later in the public parties with this series as well.“
Ceren Saner was born in 1991, Istanbul, Turkey and studied business administration at Koc University (TR), graduating in 2014. She has eventually become a self-taught visual artist working with photography and videography.
Her first documentary film, Traces of My Uncle, has been shortlisted for the Small Axe Award 2014 by Tolpuddle Radical Film Festival, UK in the Best Student Film - Factual/Documentary category. In 2015, she was part of the 5th Annual Exposure Award exhibition and publication whose reception has taken place in the Louvre Museum.
Since November 2016, she lives in Berlin and is on tour (#isntitlovethetour) with her works around Germany. Consequently, her works have yet been exhibited in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Turkey.
1991 Istanbul born, now Berlin based self-taught visual artist Ceren Saner describes her approach as private documentary as her works are predominantly autobiographical.
Since her childhood, frames have always been the firsthand source of information for Ceren Saner because of lost figures in her own family. She unconsciously used photography to understand these lost figures in her roots first. Then by starting to create new frames herself, she has been trying to re-build her lost memory and existence and de/construct whatever was left to her. Ceren Saner is questioning the relationship between the one behind the camera, and the one in the frame -in other words: the subject, interaction/intersection of both of these existences at the exact moment.
