Rönicke, Pia (DK) / Zeynel Abidin Kızılyaprak (TR)
Carlsberg Tap E
Pia Rönicke / Zeynel Abidin Kızılyaprak
Pia Rönicke, born 1974 in Roskilde, Denmark. Lives in Copenhagen
Zeynel Abidin Kızılyaprak, born 1960 in Adiyaman, Turkey. Lives in Istanbul
The Danish artist Pia Rönicke met the Kurdish writer and journalist Zeynel Abidin
Kızılyaprak in Los Angeles, where he was on a residency. Some months later Rönicke asked Kızılyaprak if he would be interested in collaborating on a project aimed at depicting the Kurdish situation - a subject that had grabbed Rönicke and which Kızılyaprak had worked with intensively as both journalist and writer. The collaboration with Kızılyaprak gave life to Rönicke's ambition to use the camera to interpret, narrate and get to grips with the utopias of modernity and the structures of power that are often regarded as the repositories of truth. The outcome was the 2008 video work Facing - A Usual Story from a Nameless Country.
For this work Rönicke joined forces with a writer who, although arguably an important literary and political voice among Kurds, is a thorn in the side of the Turkish political Establishment. While the narrative core is provided by Kızılyaprak's experiences in a Turkish prison, the film is also focused around the Kurds' political history, language and culture - all of which are blind spots in the official Turkish history books.
"If I was a filmmaker and should tell the story I would shoot a movie like this..."
This opener suggests the take adopted by the narrator, Kızılyaprak. The film tells
the story of two individuals locked up in adjoining prison cells, and a hole in the
intervening wall which enables a relationship to unfold that transcends both religious and political barriers. The young revolutionary and an elderly religious man share for a while a common fate, both victims of a political situation.
Facing - A Usual Story from a Nameless Country is based on the author's experiences in a Turkish torture chamber. A mix of fictional elements and an actor's re-enactment of factual events are combined in the work, its flow sporadically interrupted to show historical snapshots. Both the fictional and the personal narrative elements incorporate strands of the grand narrative of the history of a country and its people - and this is where the work's political and social power dynamic lies hidden. For no matter how utopian it might sound, personal narratives have within them the potential to challenge the official account of history written by those in power.
-MHB / JS
Zeynel Abidin Kızılyaprak, born 1960 in Adiyaman, Turkey. Lives in Istanbul
The Danish artist Pia Rönicke met the Kurdish writer and journalist Zeynel Abidin
Kızılyaprak in Los Angeles, where he was on a residency. Some months later Rönicke asked Kızılyaprak if he would be interested in collaborating on a project aimed at depicting the Kurdish situation - a subject that had grabbed Rönicke and which Kızılyaprak had worked with intensively as both journalist and writer. The collaboration with Kızılyaprak gave life to Rönicke's ambition to use the camera to interpret, narrate and get to grips with the utopias of modernity and the structures of power that are often regarded as the repositories of truth. The outcome was the 2008 video work Facing - A Usual Story from a Nameless Country.
For this work Rönicke joined forces with a writer who, although arguably an important literary and political voice among Kurds, is a thorn in the side of the Turkish political Establishment. While the narrative core is provided by Kızılyaprak's experiences in a Turkish prison, the film is also focused around the Kurds' political history, language and culture - all of which are blind spots in the official Turkish history books.
"If I was a filmmaker and should tell the story I would shoot a movie like this..."
This opener suggests the take adopted by the narrator, Kızılyaprak. The film tells
the story of two individuals locked up in adjoining prison cells, and a hole in the
intervening wall which enables a relationship to unfold that transcends both religious and political barriers. The young revolutionary and an elderly religious man share for a while a common fate, both victims of a political situation.
Facing - A Usual Story from a Nameless Country is based on the author's experiences in a Turkish torture chamber. A mix of fictional elements and an actor's re-enactment of factual events are combined in the work, its flow sporadically interrupted to show historical snapshots. Both the fictional and the personal narrative elements incorporate strands of the grand narrative of the history of a country and its people - and this is where the work's political and social power dynamic lies hidden. For no matter how utopian it might sound, personal narratives have within them the potential to challenge the official account of history written by those in power.
-MHB / JS