In this way starts with selected works from Mardin based artist Rojda Tuğrul, which refer to Kurdish villages in eastern and southeastern Turkey which were forcibly evacuated as part of a government counterinsurgency campaign in the early 90’s. Do these houses have memories? Diyarbakır and New York based artist and author Şener Özmen narrates a game of jump rope between three young Anatolian girls. He calls them ‘women’ in the title of the work, reviving the contested theory that geography is destiny. Do women have childhood? Stockholm based artist Savaş Boyraz’s careful and caring gaze witnesses the silent walk of a group of guerrilla fighters. His cinematographic language negotiates their sad, joyful and lonely moments with nature. Do these guerrillas have hope? Berlin based filmmaker, writer and theorist Hito Steyerl presents a gripping story from a fictional space agency and three pilot drones on a hill north of Iraq where an old national observatory is located. Do we believe in future? Through this film programme, we travel in between different landscapes that become abstract, narrative and fictional spaces of the unspeakable psycho-geographic realities of our time.
...between us... is dedicated to the human tongue, yet does not include any spoken word. It might be about storytelling, or individual forms of expression; it transmits lost-in-translation meanings of human existence, but also balances the absence and presence of language. It might be about the spaces we share when we (try to) communicate, both mentally and bodily. It starts with Diyarbakır based artist Erkan Özgen’s recent work that portrays a Syrian boy who tells his traumatic experience with war. Like Caravaggio depicted his subjects, the boy tells his story in the type of stark detail accessible only to the one who lived it. Vienna-Istanbul based artist Nilbar Güreş’s piece is staged in a Brechtian atmosphere, and symbolically narrates the oldest gender game of the world since Adam and Eve. Or Lilith? Is it nature or nurture? Diyarbakır based artist Cengiz Tekin's video takes place in a concrete construction site on a bright day; it is a mesh of steel wires, and a group of local men pacing. There is surely a choreography, which follows the beats of their synchronised walks. A choreography which shares the masterful monotony of Samuel Beckett’s, Waiting for Godot... ...between us... is between every you and every me.
Both of the video progammes; In this way and ...between us... are developed by Misal in conversation with the pa icipating a ists during the research process of Mutter- zunge, and the initiation process of ASA (Autonomous Space Agency).