"an untumultous and a fine interpretation of queer": Interview with Berk Kır

14/12/2022

"an untumultous and a fine interpretation of queer": Interview with Berk Kır

Fatih Özgüven

Translator: Kerem Selçuk

The first time I encountered a work of Berk Kır was at Misal Adnan Yıldız’s exhibition called The Weight of the World. It was a photograph Berk placed on the entrance hall of Minerva Palace. The photograph was placed right under the goddess after whom the palace was named, and it was a photograph of a girl clothed in a headscarf and carrying a teapot on her head looking at us. The work seemed like a humorous take on how Minerva and those who named the palace after her took themselves so seriously. In that sense, it was an untumultous and a fine interpretation of Queer. We met with Berk to talk about these. Berk was coming from an interview he had with Hilton Hotel about the exhibition he was planning to make. He had previously visited the Ankara Queer Art Program - Artist Residency. As the Latin saying goes, in medias res, so are we jumping right into the middle of the narrative and sharing our conversation with you:  

 

Fatih Özgüven: Right before starting the interview, you’d stated that in making photography, you generally had the habit of multiplying objects. However, in your recent work at Hilton, you decreased them this time. Can you expand on this a bit?

Berk Kır: Normally, photography is an art where I multiply the things that I bring together. By integrating things into how I receive and experience events at different times, I produce something new.

Fatih: Yes, that’s an interesting point. It was the very first work of you that I encountered and one that I found interesting. Could you tell us about what you have done at Hilton?

Berk: At Hilton, what I produced was the result of my intervention to Hilton’s own archive. It was a search of visual meaning making through my direct or indirect interventions to their photography archive.

Fatih: You mentioned about decreasing.

Berk: Yes, I normally have a more multiplying perspective to photography. At Hilton, though, I made meaning by decreasing the images. Contrary to my understanding of photography that lies in multiplying things, at Hilton, I decreased things and brought them together.  It will be a new exhibition technique, one that I sought after in Ankara.

Fatih: Was it in Ankara that you first sought after it?

Berk: The way this technique has emerged has something to do with Ankara as the way I make photography is through walking. I walk a lot in the city and instead of walking one area more than once, I prefer to take another route.

Fatih:  For me, walking works well when it comes to writing. How do you make use of it?

Berk: The way photography emerged, in other words, the perception of traditional photography is based on the notion that no single moment is retrievable. Yet, this is not how I approach photography. To me, what matters more is absorbing or sort of internalizing that very moment. This is where walking comes to the fore.

Fatih: So not filling the moment but internalizing it.

Berk: Or maybe witnessing. I witness many things as I walk. I might witness a couple fighting, someone kissing, a smell I never tasted or one that is long gone. I mean, walking is what triggers me. It is walking that makes it possible for me to make photography. In other words, not through the traditional approach to photography, but through my own way of internalizing things that I happen to encounter.

Fatih: And how do you manage to process these?  

Berk: What I see or hear remind me of my own life. I have a more biographical approach. Even if I am not the one directly observable in the photos, each one of them has something to do with me as they all relate to how I feel. Once I said, “Photography emerges when the road I take outside parallels to the one I take inside”.

Fatih: What about conflicts?

Berk: What I need is being triggered or dwelling upon something. I need to feel.

Fatih: I see your point but is there always a need to compromise the outer world with your inner one? What about creating things when these two are in conflict?

Berk: Both ways are possible. When walking and encountering things that much, I also collect objects that act as reminders. As I walk, in relation to being in the flow, I collect objects randomly.

Fatih: Do they play a role in the relationship between you and your photography? Is there a need to keep them with you?

Berk: I prefer keeping them as it’s the object that produces the meaning of the photo.

Fatih: Okay, but how do you relate to seeing the object? Does it serve as an inspiration? Or do you need to look at for visual purposes?  

Berk: The object is a documentation of the moment I happened to experience.

Fatih: So, you need the object in the process of making photography. What about when this process is over? Do you get rid of it?

Berk: No, to me, they are eternal and as I focus on the process, they are more of an issue than an object. In that sense, I see photography as dynamic.

Fatih: I get that, but do you keep or remove them?

Berk: I tend to keep them.

Fatih: You keep objects as sort of materials, then.

Berk: I like collecting and archiving things, but I might one day leave those objects to where I found them. To cut the long story short, in searching objects, I failed to see much in Ankara.

Fatih: That’s interesting. Where exactly did you walk?

Berk: I stayed in Ayrancı district in Ankara. I walked through Kızılay, Gaziosmanpaşa, and the neighboring districts. I did encounter a few incidents outside, but no objects. Then I thought it’s yet another chance of encounter. I’m interested in objects and their potentials. I started to contemplate on the objects whose potential I could tap into to make meaning. In terms of being the capital, Ankara has a lot to do with communication.  

Fatih: You mean how one communicates with the city.

Berk: Rather how people communicate among one another. When I thought about the communication tools people use there, what crossed my mind was the scanner, an object used for scanning, copying, sending documents.  

Fatih: So, you made use of the object that you didn’t encounter, but you used the one you could associate with the bureaucratic nature of Ankara. Is that correct?

Berk: I was in search of how I could tap into the potential of a new object to create an alternative approach to photography. I transformed the literal use of the scanner to a tool for photography making. I scanned and manipulated my photography.

Fatih: How did you emulate the scanner?

Berk: I scanned by removing the visuals I cut and placed new ones.

Fatih: So, you scanned the photos in the traditional sense and replaced them with something new.

Berk: Exactly, my work at Hilton underwent such a process.

Fatih: Are there any connections between Hilton and Ankara?

Berk: In terms of making use of the scanner, yes, maybe there is.

Fatih: And what other things have you done in Ankara apart from this scanning method?

Berk: I produced works by tapping into the potential of moving the paper, some being moved through blowing, some by making use of my hands and feet. In other words, the body was also involved.

Fatih: Which objects have you found?

Berk: A spoon.

Fatih: How did you get an image out of it?

Berk: I moved it as I scanned it.

Fatih: How do you do that?

Berk: I didn’t close the cover of the scanner.

Fatih: But then you let a little bit of a sunshine.

Berk: The background changes depending on the amount of the light. Turning now to Ankara once again, I felt my relationship with myself grew further there. I was born and grew up in Istanbul and never left there. Ankara is a city I feel no attachment to and one that I know little about. So, I went to this place where I had no sense of belonging. There was this furnished flat allocated to me giving me a sense of familiarity, as well. This sort of created a dilemma. Apart from the scanner, I made use of the objects in the flat.

Fatih: Which ones?

Berk: The pillows in the bedroom. I used the template of the pillow and inserted it into a previous work of mine.

Fatih: So, let’s get back to the teapot and how you make the objects you’ve found a part of making your photography. The teapot was on a stage there, a humorous stage it was. What comes to my mind speaking of the word Queer is something similar: the coming together of the unrelated to create a meaning, expressing the humor within the unrelated in a serious tone. By this serious expression, I mean it is as if there is no humor embedded and things are taken so seriously. This was something that struck my attention and that I liked a lot about your work. It was as if everyone carries a teapot on their heads all the time. I could also relate to Minerva’s head above. Upon looking at the building, one can sense how ostentatious, redundant, and camp it is. The work is also teasing with that historical weight of the building. It was built in 1900s, named Minerva Han, and was taken so seriously that Minerva’s head was placed on it.  What I liked most about that work was that it undermined all those about the building and its composition. Can you tell us about your approach in such works?

Berk: Well, that work was from an exhibition I called Başımın Üstünde Yerin Var^*

Fatih: The seriousness in that is also great. It’s as if one carries an iron on their head all the time. To me, it’s also great that such seriousness is not a part of the humor.

Berk: I have been working on this series since December 2019. The teapot dates to January 2019 and is one of my first works.  

Fatih: I guess the idiom başımın üstünde yerin var itself tells you a story. 

Berk: What I did for this series is that I collected some object from the streets and thought about their genders and social functions. This process took me to the idioms in everyday life. Başımın üstünde yerin var is actually an expression of tolerance and hospitality but given the heteronormative, binary relations, the person that hosts someone in their place is usually a woman and therefore the place at the top of a head usually turns into a job description within the household. 

Fatih: It, then, takes on a different meaning, moving away from its literal use of expressing hospitality.

Berk: Exactly. So, what I did was I placed those objects used in hosting guests on top of a head.

The photograph met the visitors right at the front of the gallery. It was on top of the visitors’ head as a way of welcoming. The figure carrying a teapot on its head was best visible through the eyes of the tea maker standing across. For me, such meanings need to be embedded as I believe photography is a never-ending process. It is self-transformative and has the potential to transform its surroundings, as well.

Fatih: Are there any other photographers that have a similar take on the art? Anyone that you can name from the history of photography?

Berk: Not that I know of.

Fatih: The iron work reminded me of Man Ray and Meret Oppenheim and of the artists that made use of technological and a bit of threatening everyday tools like a knife. I thought maybe they were inspirational for you.

Berk: Well, in that sense there is no specific direction that I’m drawn to, nor do I stay away from any. As I approach photography from a biographic perspective, any event I experience in daily life might transform a previous work. I like the photographs to be displayed in public in enlarged sizes. I believe a photograph displayed outdoors better conveys the embedded meanings as it represents a particular person that needs to be out there.

Fatih: This sounds sort of redemptive.

Berk: Somehow yes, and maybe even provocative. I also like photography to be vocal. It is for this reason that I believe it needs to outdoors in public.

Fatih: Do you mean photography turns out to be vocal when it is enlarged?

Berk: Not when it’s enlarged, but when it’s displayed in the right place.

Fatih: Apart from your work, can you name any commercial photos in that sense?

Berk: What I’ve been arguing thus far is totally personal. I’ve been sharing my personal discoveries.

Fatih: So, has there been any enlarged work of yours displayed in public?

Berk: My works at Kasa Gallery. Two pieces from this series were displayed at Yekhan Pınargil’s exhibition made with Nilüfer Municipality. The location of the exhibition was a storehouse of beets, a place built with Ottoman manifestations after the Industrial Revolution. The works displayed there had something to do with the Industrial Revolution, as well.

Fatih: What was in there?

Berk: Teapot and fan.

Fatih: Were they enlarged?

Berk: Yes, larger than the ones at Kasa Gallery.

Fatih: In size of the walls?

Berk: They were 2x3 meters in size and displayed with the objects that happened to be there.

Fatih: Did you involve those objects?

Berk: When we first went to explore the storehouse, there were some objects brought there back in time and remained there. They were immovable. There were others that were moved to clear the venue, as well. My works were displayed on the immovable ones.

Fatih: You mean only the immovable ones had to remain there and relating to those did not upset you.

Berk: Exactly. Because I preferred to make an exhibition on found objects with the ones I found there.

Fatih: Yes, but they were not your preferred objects. Rather, they were immovable. What about the ones that were removed out of the storehouse? You could have wished to make use of a few of those.

Berk: Certainly, I could, or we could have wished the exhibition to take place at some other venue. The initial plan was something different, but I was pleased with what we ended up with.

Fatih: I see. What mattered was not how the objects imposed themselves, but how you related to them.

Berk: Well, if the rest of the objects hadn’t been removed, there could have been an alternative way of interpreting the venue.

Fatih: So, for you the way objects impose themselves by just being there is also something interesting. What you do is not creating conflicts with them, but rather involving them in what you do.

Berk: How I feel during the encounter matters, to be honest. How the day starts gives me signs on how the day would proceed. Say, for example, I feel close to a color in the street. That day, I follow the path of the people wearing that color.

Fatih: So, for you there are such guiding elements.

Berk: Surely, there is. Even though it’s my free will to decide on what to do that day, it’s the people I encounter that are in charge. I am somehow dependent on them. If they decide to enter a restaurant, then I choose another path. Still, it’s them that bring me to that certain spot. I create such games in the city.

Fatih: That’s interesting. These games have something to do with fiction and writing. They have a literary function.

Berk: As I said before, rather than picturing something, I take these coincidences as my source of motivation and this has been the case in creating my works, so far. This could transform or evolve into something else as I believe everything in life has a potential and it’s this very potential of things that I find way stronger and more real than the reality itself.  

Fatih: I see. You don’t pick something on purpose, it’s this coincidence that interests you.

Berk: Exactly, it’s built on this process of random encounters. Therefore, photography to me is a process.

Fatih: You bring different objects together in making photography. Things like bubble wraps, I guess.

Berk: Yes.  

Fatih: I guess you enjoy such things, as well.

Berk: The starting point of this had again something to do with how I relate to things happening around me. I had to use the cargo service during the pandemic, something I wouldn’t normally have preferred as I don’t like people to do things for me that I’m capable of doing.

Fatih: I assume you like to be in control. Is that also the case for your work? I can gather that you like to be the final decision maker.

Berk: Someone else could make the final decision. I enjoy that flexibility, for sure.

Fatih: But it’s you and the object that are mostly the decision makers.

Berk: Exactly.

Fatih: So, rather than any authority out there, you want the bond between you and the object to become the decision makers.

Berk: Yes. To me, random encounters are crucial. During the pandemic, there was a new object from outside entering my place. The bubble wraps had nothing to with my life. They were only a means to protect another object. I wasn’t comfortable having to collect that much of plastic waste, so I ended up wrapping the photos I’d taken before the pandemic. There was this tension of surface. Invading my previous photos, this tension blurred them. The pandemic invaded and blurred my own life and so this reflected on my work, as well.

Fatih: I thought it was more related to your desire to combine different materials.

Berk: That could be the case. Before the pandemic, the objects were part of my photography, during the pandemic, though, they started to invade my art.

Fatih: An invasion from outside.

Berk: Exactly.

Fatih: I see. We can now turn to your new approach in photography, how you decrease things to make art.

Berk: When I have an unbiased a more neutral stance, I tend to adopt an approach where I multiply things.

Fatih: But this is your previous approach, right?

Berk: Yes. What I have tried in Ankara is just the opposite. This time it was more about multiplying through decreasing.

Fatih: What Ankara has reminded you of has somehow penetrated into your photography.

Berk: Yes, and this exactly what I mean when I say what I experience in life has a direct relation to my art. I tend to transform the circumstances I’m surrounded with and photography, in that sense, has a transformative effect.  

Fatih: Are you planning to make other art works apart from photography like installing three dimensional objects or are you more into photography?
Berk: I’m not that much into a different thing. Even if I was, photography would still be a big part of my life. To me, photography is more of an umbrella term that involves installing.

Fatih: So, photography itself encompasses installing or doing three dimensional things.  

Berk: Yes, and when I talk about installation, I mean installing photography not with the mere meaning that it conveys, but through how it exists in a certain location

Fatih: I see. Photography has the potential to be installed, then. This, in turn, enriches its meaning and maybe sometimes fully creates what it conveys.

Berk: Discovering different potentials, experiencing new things excite me a lot. I started this journey 11 years ago, when I was 14.

Fatih: What’s your major by the way?

Berk: I studied Art History at Mimar Sinan University, Faculty of Fine Arts. I am currently pursuing my MA studies in Preservation of Cultural Heritage Department at Kadir Has University

Fatih: How has your educational journey affected your photography making?

BERK: I believe everything has an impact on my life just like this interview we are having right now. I don’t know when I can feel this impact, but some day it might manifest itself. Looking back in time, 11 years ago, tourists from Japan used to have those semi compact silver cameras. I used one of those for a very long time. It was actually a gift from my uncle-in-law. I had my first semiprofessional digital camera, a Canon it was, when I started university. I used it for my works until very recently. I’ve been using another model now but using my first small camera was also about discovering a new perspective. As it was tiny and portable, I could take it with me wherever I went to. I could observe what I discovered in the photography club where we compared our works and had critiques on them. Studying art history also had an impact on my discoveries about myself and the world outside.

Fatih: Art history has sort of been an inspiration for you, then. Would you name anyone in art history that struck your attention the most?

Berk: I can say the porcelain urinal work back in 1917, an object free of its practical everyday use. What excites me more about Duchamp is his alter ego Rrose Séllavy. Art history is a discipline that allows you to learn about the lives of artists and in that sense, I find it very interesting. Say, for instance Joseph Beuys had had an accident and during times of recovery, he produced works that he could relate to. I like his performative approach, the way he turned his body into an object. I find the attitudes of artists towards life very impressive.

*Translators note: Başımın üstünde yerin var is a Turkish idiom used to express hospitality, tolerance. It means “By all means; you are most welcome”. The literal translation of the idiom would be “You have a place on top of my head.” The literal translation of the idiom will be used in the rest of the text.