The Land of The Disappeared
Collection:UAL Art Collection
Date: 2022
Artist: Zilan İmşik (Turkish)
Dimensions:
47.5 x 70.5cm
Medium: Photography
Object number: UAC 1097
DescriptionZilan studied MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication. She says:
"The Land of the Disappeared is a multimedia work that uses photography, sculpture, and sound to recreate the atmosphere of Turkey’s Kurdish provinces in the 80s and 90s. This work envisions a parallel world where the normal meaning of things begins to crack, as do the cognitive structures we use to think of the living and the dead, and where seemingly ordinary objects and places turn into something else, something horrible.
Central to these abductions is the white Renault 12. Anyone forced into this vehicle could be certain they would not emerge alive. Photographs record landscapes where bodies of some of the disappeared were found. They are printed onto white paper using repeated layers of varnish. This creates an effect where the prints appear white from a distance, however when viewed closely different parts of the photographs become visible and invisible as they are lit from different angles. The telephone represents the hunting past that has been known but not acknowledged. Equipped with a motion sensor, the phone begins to ring whenever someone is near, and if they answer they hear an audio.
No precise and final figure has emerged for the number of people that were forcibly disappeared in Turkey, but according to the Truth and Justice Foundation the total number of the disappeared is 1,353. To this day families continue to search for their loved ones".
"The Land of the Disappeared is a multimedia work that uses photography, sculpture, and sound to recreate the atmosphere of Turkey’s Kurdish provinces in the 80s and 90s. This work envisions a parallel world where the normal meaning of things begins to crack, as do the cognitive structures we use to think of the living and the dead, and where seemingly ordinary objects and places turn into something else, something horrible.
Central to these abductions is the white Renault 12. Anyone forced into this vehicle could be certain they would not emerge alive. Photographs record landscapes where bodies of some of the disappeared were found. They are printed onto white paper using repeated layers of varnish. This creates an effect where the prints appear white from a distance, however when viewed closely different parts of the photographs become visible and invisible as they are lit from different angles. The telephone represents the hunting past that has been known but not acknowledged. Equipped with a motion sensor, the phone begins to ring whenever someone is near, and if they answer they hear an audio.
No precise and final figure has emerged for the number of people that were forcibly disappeared in Turkey, but according to the Truth and Justice Foundation the total number of the disappeared is 1,353. To this day families continue to search for their loved ones".