video work

in a corner bistrot in paris crepes are being delivered (2024)

03:42

Experimental

ARŞİV (2024)

01:37

Experimental

casamigos night in istanbul, apartiman (2024)

01:42

Event Documenting

diskotek (2024)

00:09

Experimental

hüsamettinkoçanınşahmeranı (2022)

09:51

Experimental Documentary

Hüsamettin Koçan is a Turkish painter and academician. With the art museum ‘Baksı’ he opened in Bayburt's Bayraktar village, he supported the local economy and the artistry of his region.His interest in Şahmaran has been well established for years to his friends and visitors, with many of her various forms existing throughout his house and the museum site. This is clearly an important story to him. That’s where I crossed paths with him; I related so much to this half-snake woman, that anyone telling her story I would be in awe of. Here he sat us down in folklore nature, to tell us of her story, recorded on an iPhone, as is the explanation of the modern folk form. We like, share, retweet to share… instead of mouth-to-ear retellings…

"i'd rather be a cyborg than a goddess." (2020)

02:18

Experimental short

After reading Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” I found myself asking people about the ideas she proposed, specifically the idea that she would rather be a cyborg than a goddess. I thought about how female cyborgs were hyper-sexualized in film, and how they were the modern world’s form of the goddess. With this film, my goal wasto focus on how women are mechanized through their bodies, and the irony of Haraway’s words.

A Bosphorus Tale in 5 acts and 3 apples (2021)

05:18

Animated satirical short

PASSWORD: bosphorus

On January 2nd 2021, Melih Bulu, who has been known for his work with the primary party in power of Turkey (AKP: Justice and Development party) was appointed the new rector of Boğaziçi University. Boğaziçi University is one of the most distinguished universities in Turkey. While normally a democratic election is supposed to be held for a new rector to be appointed. The decision of the government, who were the only deciding factors involved in the process, was met with outrage starting with the students of Boğaziçi University. Police intervened the students on the south campus of Boğaziçi University, 159 people were detained as of the previous night. Hundreds of thousands of tweets were shared with the tag #AşağıBakmayacağız, which means “We won’t look down!” This hashtag was started when police were shouting at groups who were protesting to “Look down and not walk in large groups.” Increasingly more people from the public were becoming involved with the situation, It wasn’t just about Boğaziçi since this was another way of the government exerting their power onto the Turkish public, dismissing our human rights. All of a sudden Boğaziçi University became a target for the government, for resisting. Another group of students became targets for supposedly being perverted through the use of their art. This namely perversion was simply for using the LGBTQIA+ symbol next to a mosque. Three students were arrested. The Istanbul Governor's Office said the artwork was an "ugly attack" that "mocked religious beliefs". These students became deviants and the president went on to talk on national television, how these were against our national values, and being in the LGBTQIA+ community was of Western propaganda. Everyone involved in the events and people who were resisting this treatment, were named terrorists.

I wanted to show a graceful resistance in contrast with something we can laugh at, even if it is a cry for help. This work is an animated satirical short that examines the dialogues that the parties involved in this mess have amongst one another.

SUVAN (2021)

01:00

Manipulated image stop-motion

Through various word play, of onion, stealing, undressing... Images of my lost state in London are seemingly floating around a flag like space depicting my transition. The sound piece refers to many characters from home, chanting the word onion again and again.

The semiotics of the Onion (2022)

04:32

Three-screen performance short film

The onion, I had come to find a representative of my three states of being. My past, which is of conflict within my country, being Armenian. My presence in a Western state, in an institution, in London. My current political state of affair in Turkey, oppressed by the political regime. In cooking recipes, the semiotics of the recipes and the onions and the states alter and get lost.

Martha Rosler’s work is referenced as a form of introducing the feminist themes behind the onion. The onion’s semiotics are named according to my complexities and contemplations. Which is how Rosler references words and the tools of the kitchen in her work. She displays her aggression towards the role of women in the kitchen through various wordplay and references the expectations.

Local Performance in the Tube (2021)

06:40

Filmed performance

Our first performance as fine arts students in Central Saint Martins. This performance in a tube is an exploration of the idea of home in a modern lonely city, always moving and finding space for our own home within this structure.

A Glass Eye of One's Own (2021)

03:46

Experimental short

This project was born from the thought of perspectives how they are manipulated and observing this through the idea of light and how that manipulates spaces. Stained glasses are often used in religious settings there is a reference to that with the theme of the apple at play, which takes me to womanhood where I wanted to exercise the idea of hope, which is the eye. The eye allows us to see, without it we cannot observe and have encounters, it also is the hope at the end.

Meanwhile the glass offers a new perspective, still referencing the root of the project, it manipulates the perspective. In this story they are the weird objects that this woman encounters, they are the monoliths of her world if you are reminiscent of Kubrick’s work 2001: A Space Odyssey. This woman finds a new colorful world on her own.

Therefore the reference to Virgina Woolf’s essay titled A room of one’s own. This woman does find a room of her own in her own setting, settling in it contently to find a space for herself in the order of things.

prisoner to the body (2021)

01:13

Experimental short

Windows separate the outside from the inside. Is there a window that separates one's body and soul? Perhaps it's our eyes. This body of work is about the interior and exterior world of women. The confinement they face through their bodies being constantly watched.

The idea of window and the association of the exterior/interior very quickly brought to my mind the relation between one's body and soul, specifically women's experiences with this. How hard it is for them to be perfectly aligned and accepted by our society. I created a prologue with a video and a photography series to explore the constraints that women and their bodies are bound by.

Milan Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness of Being" has a chapter dedicated to body and soul, where his character Tereza explores her problems with it. She has a recurring nightmare recurring dream of being in a group of naked women, chanting and dancing around a pool, as Tomas is in the middle on a platform with a gun, shooting them one by one.

The dream displays how the women seem to taunt and mock her. When they sing in unison, Tereza automatically thinks how they have no individuality and are happy about it. This part in the novel particularly explores what individuality is expected and allowed for women especially when it comes to their bodies.

Photography Workshop with Ballerina (2020)

01:05

Music video style documentary

Was in charge of documenting the shoot of a photography crew photographing the ballerina Melike Manav.

"Prop"Aganda (2020)

01:05

Satirical political short

While given the task to create a film about what the COVID-19 has brought in terms of feelings, I noticed that while it went unnoticed to many, the Turkish government had a new form of propaganda, therefore a new way to silence their public. Wear your mask, and care about nothing else that is going on in your country!

The Turkish Government made a lot of important decisions over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I looked more into why such crucial decisions were being made in this time, it made me realize that this was a new form of propaganda for them. For the first time, they would be able to say, rightfully so shut up and wear your mask! However, the public has been bright through this time protesting even when they are being forced to silence. The issue of women, police/abuse of power, economy, and Hagia Sophia are highlighted in this film that displays the power dynamics between the government itself, where exists a puppetry. As well as public figures, such as MFÖ who sing the song and the enraged public.

In Loving Memory of Suzy (2020)

01:05

Narrative short

One of my projects in my first year filmmaking class was collaborating with another student to create a film about the thing they presented as inspirational to them. I was paired with a girl that presented David Hockney’s “A Bigger Splash.” Inspired by Hockney, pools, Wes Anderson, and childhood this is an absurdist comedy exploring intriguing characters from life.

Taksim_onesizefitsall (2020)

01:16

Music video style documentary

Istanbul reflects a multitude of cultures due to its history and geographical location. Taksim, Istanbul is an extremely busy area that most people pass through. Going there after COVID-19 and it was extremely interesting to look at how the situation had changed the people and their interaction with Taksim. I saw new buildings that had been built, an old woman selling bait for pigeons, lots of tourists, a Starbucks and a Burger King right across from traditional food places, a blood drive… It was impossible to capture all of this on camera, however here is a look at the many different textures that make up Taksim a mixture of tradition and futurism.

Cards We Play By In Modern Times (2019)

01:05

Music video style documentary

To put it simply this game is a modification of playing cards adapted to society's values today. All of the values that the cards have are influenced by the current system’s capitalist point of view.

This card game was created to make fun of society’s absurd ideals. The commercial is supposed to make fun of that, borrowing some elements from classic game commercials like Monopoly.

157/180 (2019)

01:05

Satirical animated short

157/180 comes from Turkey's rank in the Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) on the 2019 World Press Freedom Index. In 2013, CNN Turkey chose to air a documentary on penguins in the midst of a major protest that was going on in Istanbul, choosing not to report on the violence the police were showing towards the people of Turkey. This was just one of the many instances where CNN Turkey showed the public who actually was the source of our news: the government. Picking up its pace from these moments, the Turkish government started to take higher levels of action towards journalists and especially artists that produce radical work. Shadow plays are not just traditional entertainment sources. They were tools for the Turkish public to stay informed when newspapers were yet to be found. By piecing together this traditional form of art and a modern problem I aim to make fun of the absurdity of the position the journalists in our country are in.

Çizgiyi Taşırma/Don't Colour Over The Lines (2020)

01:55

Narrative Short

Imagination has always been a big part of children's innocence. But as a society, do we really allow children's imagination to grow? Or do we forget the importance of imagination in pursuit of suppressing ideal rules?

The older we get, the more we associate lying with imagining things. The idea that we shouldn’t imagine, that we should go by the textbook definitions is what is criticized in this film. The imagination and curiosity that kids naturally have is something that should be admired not judged.

1 but 2 and 3 then 4 (2019)

01:19

Narrative Short

Panic attacks and anxiety are a part of many teenagers’ narrative. However, these were terms I was finding out that society is afraid of. Essentially, with my filmmaking I try to use my narrative to speak out about issues that I have seen to be important and lacking narrative in the world of films.

Aman Alper Nazar (2021)

01:43

Narrative Short

During quarantine, my friends and I were spending a lot of time creating home videos and picking our favorite of the week. Enjoy this selected week's short.