‘Restore Hope’ deals with people who have experienced life on the brink of death to such a degree that they have nearly lost their ability to even imagine a future for themselves.

And my last video is entitled as ‘See Me! / Se Mig!’ , will be complited in August 2008 . I am working on this project since january 2008 ,it is about violence against women in Sweden .’See Me!’ is very well connected to my previous video work entitled ‘Hard to Die’. It was about honor killings. For that project I ve been worked in several cities’ the women shelters with more than 40 women who were excaping to not to be killed by their families. . ‘Hard to Die’ is screened in Belgrade and in Berlin in 2007 and in Istanbul and in Milano in 2008.

“See me! “, will be shown in Stockholm, Goteburg , Malmo,Visby,Umea, Scene, Kinna, Varberg and also in other 14 small ,big cities and towns in Sweden then after will be shown in Diyarbakir and Istanbul till the end of 2008.
‘See me!’ is supporting by Riksutstallinangar and Intercult .It is related to the project ‘Home not Home’.

APRIL_MAY_JUNE (Collaborative Project)
Com’on , come here! I can not hear you!-2008

This music video entitled as ‘ Com’on , come here! I can not hear you!, is a project by Selda Asal and collaborated with the musician Serdar Ateser.
Gul Kozacioglu and more than 40 young people( mostly different origin) took apart in this project.
All the lyrics are written by these young people.
Mail Lyric:Khadige Khador Kassir
Other Lyrics: Esma Akkaya, Tadas Degn, Zeineb Hamad, Fatima Hammoud, Pernille Kiip Nilesen.

Thanks to
Ulrik Skeel, Ramo Akbina , og Lene Højgaard Hansen,Nørrelandskolen, Malene Nautrup, Sct. Jorgens Skole, Henrik Nørsoller Birkelundsskolen,Niklas Morgenstern, Kulturhuset, Ali Ural,Tommy Bay,
Cafe Cremer and Kurdisk-Dansk.

2008  April  11^th., Solo Exhibition.  in Nev Gallery 

 March, shooting  in several  in women shelter houses about women violence and honor killing   issue in Sweden .

February, research traveling to Holsbtebro , Denmark

January  4th. Presentation of Selda Asal, Winter Academy in Berlin 

Winter Academy labour 6   directing by :Selda Asal   6 January-12 January 2008  Berlin  Mathew, Dean, Judith, Mimi, Qentin, Soren  Assistants: Nicole, Caroline  Musician : Pebert 

 I was invited to Berlin for a one-week film laboratory on Jan 3, 2008  Winter Academy Berlin is a kind of workshop in Lichtenberg where Theather Parkau

invites visual and performing  artists. The aim of the workshop is to create a movie or a show together with a group of kids and teenagers in a

 week. I was invited to Berlin Winter Academy for a movie lab with teenagers aged between 13 and 15. Lab went on  for a week. The concept of the lab was to

ask the question “what would you fight for?” both to ourselves and people  we meet on the street. Everything would be filmed. We planned to make up a text out of these interviews and ask  from a musician to make up a hiphop song from our text. And then we would make a music video synchronizing the song.

 Day 1

We talked about what we would fight for. We discussed how to use the camera, where to focus when shooting, how to make  the interviews for about one and a half hoursThen we started working just away. We took the tram to Warschauer. There we started interviewing people.We walked up to Schlessichertor shooting graffitis that might help us  when making the video. Meanwhile we asked each other these questions, and taped it. As children learned that everything  could be taped, that everything could be an ingredient in our  movie, everyone started taping everything from buildings, to roads, to the train that passed from the bridge above us. Everyone was relaxed after a few interviews. When we started  making interviews on life and difficulties in a Turkish doner house, now everyone put aside their shyness and started  shooting and asking question with 3-4 cameras at the same time. As it become a bit dark, we decided to go back. All along  the road we talked about what kind of a text we could form with our experiences today.

Day 2  

After making up our daily plan, we hit the road to get to the ice rink. I was sick, I felt that I had a fever. But it was my second day and the lab was just 5 days. I did not have time to rest. Feeling cold, I just stood and watched the team making interviews. By now everyone was an expert.

After our meal in DB, we started studying on making up a text, iMovie and basics of simple film editing program. One day before the lab started I taught my assistants with Performing Arts background, Carolin and Nicole, how to edit movies. They helped the group whenever I could not reach everyone. On Tuesday, right after the lab was over, I went to the Doctor and I learned that my body temperature of 38.8 degrees. I took my meds and slept right away.

On Tuesday, right after the lab  was over, I went to the Doctor and I learned that my body temperature of 38.8 degrees. I took my meds and slept right away. 

Day 3

I was still sick. We did not go out to shoot. We had 12 hours of tapes and many interviews. Maybe 25 or 30 ones. All morning, I was running between the desks helping out with the edits.

In the afternoon, our musician Pebert came. Pebert is a cute guy that has already made many workshops with kids and teenagers before. He connected with the kids right away and helped them to make up a text that would reflect their own realities. Other than Soren, everyone was a bit ashamed to share their texts. But everyone was different and everyone’s struggle was different. How would it be possible to make up one uniform song from all these different texts? We are very curious.

 Day 4 Thursday

We go on with the editing. At lunch time the group attended the conference organized by Wunderkammer on internet and web. I continued cleansing some of the images that are not good in the tapes. Kids that finished audio records go on with film edits. Matthew and Quentin finished their first videos. So did Mimi. and Dean. In the afternoon Pebert came and he recorded everyone’s voice one by one. Today I will be able to work in Rathaus Gallery which will be our study room from now on. I am working till 11 pm.

 link >>>  lyric

Day 5 Friday

We go on editing. Other than the music video, we do a few documentations too. The interviews that we made, our short trips around the city.. there are many things in this video. Everyone is in a hurry. Everyone makes up an individual video. Matthew is very hardworking, he does not even move when working. He works the most. Judith and Mimi works hard too. Soren focuses more on the text. His text formed largest part of the music. Quentin mostly prefers to work with Matthew. Dean finished his second video today. So did Matthew. Judith’s second documentation is also finished. The ones that are done with the film, focuses on our one-week diary made up of photos and texts. This way, they had to learn the INDESIGN program one way or another. Today, for the first time, I was not sick, I got permission to stay in the lab till 7. I was done by 5:30. Including burning the dvd for the team. Yes, everything is on time. Our video is nice too.

Day 6 Saturday

I slept for an hour and came back to the lab. But I’m fine. We have a presentation in the afternoon. The presentation was successful. It was obvious that everyone was proud of what they have done. Our second presentation was even better. Because everyone was expressing themselves better, standing next to the film that they have made. At night, we joined the party as a team. I danced till 1:30. I just slept for an hour but I was motivated by my team and we kept dancing. Even Quentin danced. Tonight when I was leaving, I realized how I got used to their presence. Would I see them once again? When they grow up and choose visual arts, would they call me? I told all of them to call me whenever they needed. And it was over. I will keep on experiencing new things somewhere else in one week. In spite of all the difficulties and conflicts, Ciao Winter Academy! but before saying that, I should write more:

Yes, our concept was “struggling” but no one asked me, what I was struggling for, this week? I was struggling as my assistants did not know anything about editing. Once in a while, I struggled as my assistant Carolin took children away from their desks claiming that they could not focus, and I had to make up for their missing time. I struggled about taking and leaving the keys of Rathaus Keller, making us lose 40 minutes everyday. And I struggled to understand the people not trusting us to give us a key, and this key making us lose time that we do not have. Why was trust missing here? When I was making workshops in museums of many countries, I could easily work next to pieces of art worth million euros. And how couldn’t they trust me? I really struggled hard to understand this. I also struggled to understand that as an answer, they told me there were many computers in the building, that could be stolen. How could that happen? actually, I had 2 laptops and 3 cameras in the building. They could be stolen more easily as they were more mobile. And moreover, my stuff was not even insured. I struggled to understand how they could not take the risk if I could. When I was sick on Tuesday, the answer that took around 15 hours to get  when I sent a text to one of the organizers.. What if I could not catch the Doctor, what if I could not get well in 2 days.. I also struggled to understand no one called to ask how I was when I was sickBut at most, I struggled to understand why I could not stay and work late in the room of Rathaus where we worked. If there is work to do, there could not be limits to how much you could work, you work till the job is done. Especially when making a movie, no one can set a time limit of 10:00  to 17:00 and make up a successful lab. And this is what I struggled most about. If video artists are invited, there should have been some people who know about video art. Because I had a hard time trying to make them understand that it would take to much time to finish our works. I struggled very hard because of their passive attitude although I explained this in the first meeting in Berling and the second meeting in Vienna and also all along the lab in Berlin. The only thing that I did not struggle about was the time spent with one of my assistants Nikole and my crew Matthew, Dean, Judith, Mimi, Quentin and Soren. And of course Pebert.

                                           

When wewere invited to Stockholm in  2006, we have invited  also anotherartist Gul Kozacioglu to the  project and we chose the suburbs of  Stockholm : Tumba and Fittja , as  our field of study, neighborhood of migrants from 150 differentcountries.To understand the parallel emotionalworlds of teenagers  from Stockholmand Istanbul, to free their minds and to provide a space where they could openup and to  re-create them..  Who werethese teenagers   How weretheir lives? Theiremotions? Theirwants? And Dreams? Theirconcerns? ( for more info>  http://www.apartmentproject.com/postcard.asp)

Than They were invited by Hou Hanrou, the curator of the 10th. Istanbul Biennial with this project in 2007. We chosed to focus on these questions in Postcards Stockholm-Istanbul.We would keep to focus  on the same way in Silahtaraga and it’s  neighbourhood like Eyüp and Sütlüce. For this Project  We have invited a visual artist Neriman Polat 

Views from the exhibition

Interactive Web                                  http://www.nice-kids.net/

     http://www.nice-kids.net/ 

Views from the exhibition

A book prepeared for the project . Designed by Selda Asal. Suponsored by Unal Ofset

                                       Video Works by Ceren Oykut, Neriman Polat and Selda Asal

Video Installation, duration: 5’34

‘I wouldn’t quit, if the world turned upside down’ is the  4th. film of my project series titled as   Restore Hope. In this project I am working with people, who are getting stuck in their life and have no future.

I have made  also another film related to the glue sniffers, titled as ‘Competing with genies’ in 2006 

Competing with Genies, 2006, Charlattenborg Pro, Copenhagen

 These two film deals with my work with teenager boys being treated for drug abuse (glue sniffing) at Bakirkoy Mental Clinic. A initiated a collaborative work process with these boys. The camera would sometimes be in their hands, sometimes in theirs. Mostly they asked the questions amongst themselves. They did a bir of journalism, a bit of role playing and acting. My own role wasnt quite defined ; I was a bit of mother, a bit of sister, maybe a bit of a friend, but i think, most importantly, a person who tried to create a third language with them on the basis of these drawings made by them. Boys who chose to live squeezed inbetween reality and dreams.

      ‘I wouldn’t quit, if theworld turned upside down’, 2007, duration:5’34 , Nev Gallery,Istanbul, LucasFeichtner Gallery, Vienna

‘ hard to die ‘, video installation /2 Projected films

duration:8′ 11

Film related to the ‘Restore Hope ‘ Project about honor killings

Images of flight by spiritual refugees

- Evrim Altug*

- Storyboards of ‘Board stories’ that spiritual refugees had made of

The series by Selda Asal entitled ‘Restore Hope’consists of five works created since 2004 and questions the paradoxical reality of life and of the individual via video installations of great psychoanalytical depth. This is an individual research project which started off as a work of art.

This is not a stance Asal is unfamiliar with, and she does not assume it simply for the sake of being controversial. A long time before she decided to become an artist, when she was about 10, Asal started to ‘conserve’ sound recordings of her acquaintances and inventories of mass killings and massacres; what we are talking about here is a determined character, interested in the ecopsychology surrounding her.

Created with an empathy both analytical and critical, Asal’s latest series ‘Restore Hope’ deals with people who have experienced life on the brink of death to such a degree that they have nearly lost their ability to even imagine a future for themselves.

Lasting eight minutes and ten seconds, this video narrative by Selda Asal, the last in a series of five works, is entitled ‘Hard to Die’ It was first screened in Belgrade and later shown in Berlin.

This documentary-like video installation starts suddenly, almost as if reported from a war front, and is presented by the ‘internal voice’ of the artist. As in other work by Asal, the aesthetics of this work exists through its reality and its content. According to Asal, the structure of the sounds and images she has collected, as well as the way those moments have affected the artist, constitute the backbone of the works.

In this work Selda Asal deals not with displaced people, who are the subject of many art works, but with people who have been displaced by others; each of these people, who come from different social classes, narrates the tragedy of ‘the other urban refugees’

As the work is screened simultaneously on two large screens, in two languages, it encompasses the fragmented narratives of a traditional, genuine, and anonymous tragedy; women living in various parts of Turkey are placed in the middle of this tragedy, while on its periphery lies the male dominated/patriarchal tradition and the so-called honor violence which encloses these women on all sides.

Selda Asal’s work is based not on emotional exploitation or on so-called re-enactions, or thoughtless and cheap dramatic effects, but on a narrative based on documents and observation, free of any artist commentary. Gestures, sounds, and intimacy are featured continuously in the foreground of the work.

In order to create this poignant work, which is infused with a scorching sense of urgency and concern, Asal visited ‘Women’s Shelters ‘in many cities. The artist, who functions as a kind of a mediator, witnessed the pain of women who have been forced to live under different identities and in different addresses, and who have actually been displaced within their environments and made into spiritual/emotional refugees.

All of the animated drawings in the videos belong to women who have been abused both sexually and in terms of their identity, and who have been deprived of their rights and freedoms. The greatest fear of these women, who have managed to find refuge in the women’s shelters, is to be discovered and recognized by the senior members of their families or by male relatives who intend to kill the

     The majority of the women come from families who were victims of the forced displacement of the mid- 1980s in Turkey, which was based on economic and political reasons, and who were suddenly made to live in large cities.

Forced to live in confined spaces and within a traditional and insular lifestyle, the women generally resort to ‘living’ in these houses because of the abuse and violence they are subjected to at home.

This is where the ‘honor’ tradition makes its appearance. According to sociological data, the members of a  ‘clan’ or of a family that is generally of Arab, African, or Kurdish origin and numbers between 100-200 individuals, do not let their daughters marry outside the clan, and this insular situation creates the basis for crimes aiming to protect the family’s ‘honor’

And it is situations such as rape, incest, forced marriages, and abductions that form the background of these women’s stories, narrated here by Asal.

In some extreme situations, in order not to become the executor of the punishment or simply to avoid legal repercussions, families sometimes choose to encourage the women deemed guilty to punish themselves or even to commit suicide.

Sometimes women are presented with instruments of death ranging from medicines to ropes, from guns to sharp instruments, and are expected to use those instruments upon themselves in order to restore the honor of the family or clan. It is at this point that the women desperately attempt to escape their homes.

These details, which frequently appear in Asal’s videos both vocally and visually, send chills down one’s spine. The fact that we do not know the faces or identities of these women, some of which had to escape without saying goodbye to their children, is important from two points of view: first of all, the artist imparts to the viewer’s conscience the duty to perceive and interpret the whole of the geographical and sociological picture that she has scattered throughout the work, via these fragments of vocal and plastic stories.

Secondly, the risk that the identities of these women, who have been deprived of their names, should be revealed, along with the reality of their consequent need for security intersect with Asal’s sense of humane and ethical responsibility.

Through this ethically concerned and critical style, the artist avoids reifying the stories that embody the ‘subject’ and she also manages to render visible a very serious issue, via the triangle of arts, ethics, and aesthetics, without putting the stories themselves at risk.

Once filtered through the prism of an intermediate surface consisting of narrative, bodily movements, and the women’s imagination, the original pictures, the only material that Asal uses, project onto a white sheet of paper the psycho-iconography of the scene we see, with an unexaggerated but tension inducing anxiety.

The pictures produced by the women who own the stories present a striking choice of colors such as black, red, and white, which have clear and universal meanings.

The white sheet of paper frequently overlaps with the dreams and the disappointments in the pictures accompanying the stories, and the exaggerated presentation of the sound of the drawing increases the harshness of the traces that the narrative engraves upon the memory.

The women, who shed silent tears, place the phallic, huge, micro ‘power’ knives and the guns in the middle of the paper. They feel the need to write ‘our lives are ruined because of you’ or even ‘we are the living dead’ in faint letters, in a corner of that same paper.

   They are the surreal painters of suffering so intense that it cannot be real.

It is clearly visible from the pictures the women draw that their pens and their eyes bleed. The identity crises they experience can easily be perceived from the clothes and wedding dresses hanging on the empty sheets of paper, but it is difficult to digest these images. In one of these pictures a bride with a small face, a huge wedding dress, a black veil, and a red ribbon, floating in the void, watches the viewers from above her tomb and the tombstone engraved with the causes of her death. This is followed by a woman who is surrounded by a composition consisting of a snake symbol, a kite, and a crucifix, and by slogans full of anger, directed at a former spouse.

Another woman, grieving because she was forced to abandon her child, entrusting it to God, and thus cutting short her own motherhood, turns her back to the paper, and moves towards an unknown and fluctuating border.

Selda Asal’s work ‘Hard to Die’ actually evokes a forensic study of pictures which consecutively identify a primitive, patriarchal mentality that invades the personality and the bodies of women who have been exiled from their lives and experience suffering of a kind that we have never seen before. It is hard to ignore such evidence.

And having watched this work, it is hard to continue leading a carefree life.

Evrim Altug* Member of AICA – Turkey, Journalist.