Filmscreening und Artist Talk mit Köken Ergun

28. November 2018, 18.00 Uhr Expostmusik, Domgasse 1, 4. OG

Die Abteilung Medientheorien lädt zu Filmsscreening und Künstlergespräch mit Köken Ergun.

Köken Ergun
(born 1976, Istanbul) is a filmmaker and video artist. His works mainly deal with the different ways rituals are used to maintain communities and nation states. Ergun works collaboratively with his subjects over an extended period of time, and often involves contributions of ethnographers, historians and sociologists. Having studied acting at the Istanbul University, Ergun completed his postgraduate studies in ancient Greek literature at King's College London and in performance studies at Freie University Berlin. His films received several awards at film festivals including the “Tiger Award for Short Film” at the 2007 Rotterdam Film Festival and the “Special Mention Prize” at the 2013 Berlinale. Ergun’s films are included in public collections such as the Centre Pompidou, EMST, Stadtmuseum Berlin and Kadist Foundation.

aşura (ashura), 24 mins
The Battle of Karbala was a military engagement that took place on 10 Muharram, 61 AH (October 10, 680) in Karbala, in present day Iraq, between the forces of Yazid I, the Umayyad caliph and Hussein, the grandson of prophet Muhammad. Hussein and all his supporters were killed; women and children were taken as prisoners. This battle is central to Shi’a Muslim belief in which the martyrdom of Hussein is mourned by an annual commemoration, Ashura. There are approximately one million Caferi Shiites in Turkey, most of which live in Istanbul and the eastern border town of Igdir. In Istanbul they inhabit a shanty town neighborhood in the outskirts of the city, which they started building in the late 1970s. The neighborhood is called Zeynebiye, referring to Hussein’s courageous sister, Zeyneb.

In ASHURA, artist Köken Ergun has worked in close collaboration with the people of Zeynebiye, documenting their preparations for the ceremonies in 2010 which involves a mass theatre performance and the isolated weeping ritual at the end of the Ashura day.

bayrak (the flag), 9 mins
The Flag is the second part of Köken Ergun’s video series about the state-controlled national day ceremonies of the Turkish Republic. Shot during the April 23rd Children’s Day, which marks the establishment of the new Turkish Parliament, and the official demise of the Ottoman Empire back in 1920, this split screen film documents a pompous patriotic performance devised by elders to be performed by children. Hosted by the mayor and governor of Istanbul, with the participation of a high ranking general, the ceremony features poems and oaths read out loud by primary schools students, while patriotism becomes a hard-lined nationalism. One of them; The Flag is recited passionately by a girl who vows to “destroy the nest of any bird who doesn’t salute [her country’s] flag in flight” and “dig the grave of anyone who doesn’t look at the flag the way [she does].”