Fikret Atay: Lalo´s story, 2004

Kurdish artist Fikret Atay lives and works in Batman, the town of his birth, situated in south-eastern Anatolia. The region runs along theTurkey-Iraq border and political and social aspects in the area are characterised by the presence of the military, poverty and political oppression targeting certain ethnic minorities. These local surroundings and the people living there provide the inspiration for Fikret Atay’s work. The artist works with video, a quick, simple and easy-to-carry medium that lends the work a documentary character: that consists, more or less, of a sequence of staged events where the artist captures, with the handheld camera, the essence of how a traditional culture, given the above mentioned circumstances, is mixed together with Western influences.

The action portrayed in short, concise video takes tends to show creative individuals or team performances, for example, dancing, singing, reading or playing an instrument. Occasionally, one finds a meaning to the action in terms of folklore or ritual. The video ’Lalo’s story’ (2004, 5.04 mins), currently at display in the exhibition at Index, shows one of the artist’s friends performing a ”dengbej” for the artist’s grandfather. The dengbej is a traditional way of storytelling including both song and speach, thematically dealing with love and war. It is normally told from the older generation to the younger since the ability of telling needs a certain amount of experinece and knowledge which can only be accumulated through a long life. Atay’s video introduces a rupture in traditional values, switching the roleplay between storyteller/the listener, furthermore changing the Kurdish language into English.

When the filmed episodes are removed from the original context, it becomes apparent that certain cultural codes can only partially be understood outside their context. According to Turkish art critic, Erden Kosova: "It could be claimed that Fikret Atay’s work is more about strategies of coding than a situation that offers opportunities for communication and legibility." Fikret Atay’s work shows us a series of events that we recognise, yet still only have a partial ability to comprehend their meaning.

Fikret Atay is visiting Stockholm, at Index’s invitation, from 9 – 15 October. Our thanks go to the Swedish Institute and the Kurdish Democratic Association.

For more information and press pictures, please contact Index. The Index exhibition programme is curated by Andreas Gedin, Helena Holmberg, Mats Stjernstedt and Niklas Östholm.