Introducing Some of My Friends to the International Art World, 2022

Commissioned by Dergi, a biannual magazine in which each issue is curated around a specific theme, this series was produced for the issue Translation, curated by Sergen Şehitoğlu. Engaging with Walter Benjamin’s understanding of translation as a condition embedded within the original, the work approaches translation as a generative artistic method.

This series of portraits begins with a literal operation: translating names into English and staging images that respond to their meanings. Deniz Gül becomes Sea Smile, photographed smiling by the sea; Ezgi Tok becomes Melody Full, caught in the act of pretending to eat vinyl records; Can Küçük becomes Life Small, seen from an almost bird’s-eye view, his body reduced within the frame as he forms a heart with his hands. Each portrait constructs a visual equivalence to a translated name, as if meaning could be stabilized through the image.

Names shift from fixed identifiers to descriptive, sometimes awkward phrases. Translation does not clarify identity but displaces it, producing new associations. The images attempt to stabilize meaning, yet reveal the gap between language and representation.