Introduction

The focus of Cemile Sahin's artistic work is political events and their narration. In her installations, she combines film, sculpture, text, sound and photography. Drawing on archival material and true occurrences, Sahin develops spatial constellations that question and contextualize political events, while highlighting how images and stories can be manipulated.

At the center of her installation for Kunsthalle Osnabrück is the premiere of the first part of her film series Vier Balladen für meinen Vater [Four Ballads For My Father]. The film, entitled Frühling [Spring] combines her signature style of quick, bright shots and prominent text and graphics with a cinematic, plot-driven narrative. The film tells the story of the Kurdish family Bingöl, whose homeland was flooded by a Turkish water dam project and displaced its members between Istanbul, Paris and on the road. The family’s father was lost in the process, and his children vow to find him. Along the way, we learn through Sahin’s playful yet incisive direction about the politics of water in the region, a natural resource rivaling oil for its scarcity and power.