http://vimeo.com/10615946
Who was I really?
Digital Film
Duration: 11' 15
Text by Joanna Sandell
Following
the rhythm of music and sound your senses are heightened with fear.
Selda Asal portrays women living under physical and psychological
terror in the video work Restore Hope: See me! As a viewer you slowly
become part of the stories told by the women. Your breath shortens, you
touch your own hand as if you have unconsciously copied the woman's
movements, her angst thrown into a gesture, soon a part of your own
movements too. Emotions wanting to creep underneath your skin, you are
entering the pain of the soul.
Selda Asal gets me thinking of a
book by the Swedish writer, psychiatrist, and researcher Ċsa Nilsonne.
The title of the book is The Bodyminder. It tells of a woman who has
the extraordinary skill of entering the bodies of other women, who has
the skill of carrying their pain. Selda Asal also has the knowledge and
the will to carry the emotions of others. Where nobody else roams you
can find Selda Asal. Earlier among youth who have lost all hope, young
suicidal girls and glue-sniffing boys of the streets, and now in
dialogue with hidden women who are living under death-threats. The work
See me! is the fifth part of the large-scale project Restore Hope,
creating an overall picture of an artist defiant in her will to
research life's fragile boundaries and a darkness most of us will never
need to venture into. In contrast to most of us, Selda Asal moves
freely in these dark landscapes, like a runner at night, equipped with
a light attached.
When I first met Selda Asal she was exhibiting
in a prominent gallery in Istanbul. Fragile, green flowers of glass
traveled organically from the library of the space. I was in Istanbul
in search of an exhibition space. Was there by any chance a possibility
of borrowing Selda Asal's exhibition space Apartment where she,
together with other artists, musicians, and actors had held workshops
and presented interdisciplinary exhibition projects? Selda Asal had
already promised the space to others during the Istanbul biennial, but
in the matter of seconds she had chosen to divide the day into two so
that we would use the exhibition space daytime and another curator
would show video art towards the street at night. That Selda Asal was
to say 'no' to a request in terms of art production is unheard of, she
is one of the strongest threads in the art network of Istanbul.
Throughout the years the exhibition space Apartment and her work studio
has attracted other artists and organizers within the cultural sphere.
Today the area of Tünel, earlier dangerous to roam at night, is an
exciting 'must' when wanting to experience the cultural diversity of
Istanbul.
When I, a few years later, wanted to create a synergy
between the public space in the municipality of Botkyrka, south of
Stockholm, and the institution Botkyrka konsthall, Selda Asal was my
first choice. She was the right person to find energy in places where I
myself would never had thought to go looking, and to create an organic
video work with elements from both Istanbul and Botkyrka, Sweden. She,
together with the artists Ceren Oykut and Gül Kozacioglu, using the
group name 3Tip, furthermore introduced a dialogue with the audience
through ongoing digital diaries and a performance consisting of fortune
telling in coffee grind. Neither sooner nor later has Botkyrka
konsthall been as dynamic, beyond the scope of what an institution in
the beginning of its career might manage to accomplish. Selda Asal and
her group 3Tip worked day and night during several weeks with an almost
dangerous fervor. Later, Selda Asal, was able to succeed with what most
artists within the field of relational aesthetics do not manage to do,
she was able to transfer her methods into other institutions, into
other cultural spheres and other countries. Teenagers rap in art videos
that borrow their structure from music videos, political questions are
given a foundation of contemporary expressions and Asal's unique
ability to combine her own skills of listening and her immense energy
with the expressions of others.
Now she has succeeded in getting
hidden women living in Sweden under death-threats to confide in her.
When we met during the summer of 2008 she was still in the midst of one
of these interviews, the room was full of condensed energy remaining
from their talk. Later, when I was given the chance to see the first
film about these threatened women I searched for the woman I had met.
Was that her, or maybe her? The many private stories were skillfully
restructured in order to protect the identity of the women, their
stories came forth as one voice, one saturated feeling. Restore Hope:
See me! may borrow its syntax and stance from the world of media
through dramatic soundtracks and a play of documentary and dramatized
sequences. But the effect is by contrast something else. The stories of
the women walk into your being and Selda Asal´s listening becomes an
echo within you too.
Joanna Sandell, Director Botkyrka konsthall
Restore Hope: 'Who was I really?' has been produced by Swedish Travelling Exhibitions as part of a project entitled Home not Home which is the Swedish contribution to the European year of intercultural dialogue (2008). The project is a collaboration and exchange between Sweden and Turkey and is one of seven EU profile projects that is also receiving support from the Swedish Ministry of Culture.
Many woman in Sweden are obliged to live in hiding for fear of violence, threats and harassment from men in their vicinity. In Selda Asal s video we meet the women s stories through their own words and images.
