Esra Ersen
Esra Ersen (born 1970) lives and works in Istanbul and Berlin. Her works often explore subjects of stereotypes, identity and migration, which are presented through a documentary style that plays between the fictional and non-fictional. Her recent exhibitions have included Dream and Reality, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul; Tactics of Invisibilty, ARTER, Istanbul; Aussicht auf Veränderungen Akademie einer anderen Stadt, Art in Public Space, Hamburg; Tanzimat, Augarten Contemporary, Vienna; Passengers, Tanas, Berlin; Translation/Tarjama, Queens Museum of Art, New York; Elsewhere, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel and has participated in the 2006 Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, and the 27th Sao Paolo Biennale, São Paulo, Brazil.
Casting for a Canary Opera | 2011 | HD | 18 min 22s
Esra Ersen’s film portrays members of a canary lovers society, reciting like actors, speeches extrapolated from a totally different context. This choice relies on the fact that in Turkey many civic initiatives, trade unions, political parties, even the army or terrorist groups, and certainly bureaucrats, when wanting to emphasize their efforts and the importance of their actions, often do so by pointing out that they are not just a simple canary lovers’ society. (Courtesy of Borusan Contemporary Art Collection)