anny and sibel öztürk

frankfurt

Anny Öztürk and Sibel Öztürk are sis­ters and have been work­ing togeth­er since 2000. The migra­tion back­ground of their fam­i­ly, which spans sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions and extends from Turkey to Roma­nia to Ger­many, has con­tributed to the fact that both of them feel root­ed in more than one cul­ture. Mem­o­ries and sto­ries are asso­ci­at­ed with more than one place, and some­times it is pre­cise­ly this inter­sec­tion of places and cul­tures that com­pletes the pic­ture of home.

“home to us can be many things beyond a par­tic­u­lar loca­tion. It can be a ray of light, a smell, a musi­cal piece. Most impor­tant­ly, how­ev­er, it is linked to mem­o­ries. Those that we have col­lect­ed in our life­time as well as those bestowed upon us in the form of fam­i­ly narratives.”

Dur­ing the lock­down, Anny and Sibel Öztürk moved their artis­tic activ­i­ties to the liv­ing room among sofa, chairs, and floor and used var­i­ous house­hold items such as kitchen appli­ances as work­ing mate­ri­als. The result is an instal­la­tion that tells the sis­ters’ per­son­al sto­ry of home. In their video, motifs from the fam­i­ly pho­to album, mem­o­ries of trav­els and their child­hood, and also images from their artis­tic work are inter­wo­ven into a sto­ry, a dense web of mem­o­ries. The sound­track of the video, which was com­posed spe­cial­ly for this project, cre­ates a feel­ing of well-being that con­trasts strange­ly with the musty con­ven­tion­al­i­ty of the poster-formed wall draw­ing and a large car­pet – orna­ments that are used as metaphors for com­fort­able liv­ing and cozi­ness, and play­ful­ly trans­formed by the artists into an abstract Mid-East­ern for­mal language.

www.annyundsibeloeztuerk.com
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Foto: Har­ald Schröder

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