Artist
Altay Tuz
Altay Tuz (b. 1993) lives and works in Hamburg. He graduated from the Photography Department of Istanbul’s Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, and is currently pursuing graduate studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. Tuz’s work focuses on tensions between public and private spaces; he probes at notions of borders, lines, barriers and walls, analysing the reflection of this visual grammar on the public architectural texture – and its connection to social class distinction. His works have been exhibited in Turkey, France, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany and Greece.
Website: www.altaytuz.com
Members Only
It’s been more than 50 years since guest workers (“Gastarbeiter”) started to immigrate to Germany from Turkey. Through sweat, blood and tears, this workforced powered Germany’s ‘economic miracle’, and many of them chose to stay – contrary to what had largely been expected. Half a century later, these people still struggle to feel a sense of belonging in their new home. The nature of integration efforts left many in limbo, between belonging and longing. Although full members of society in Germany, they face the pain and stigma of belonging to immigrant society, ranging from stereotyping to xenophobia. Meanwhile, the ideal of a dream homeland offers relief from the daily disappointment, providing mental and psychological shelter to those in need. Social sanctuaries, or protected islands, offer a sense of safety, comfort and homeliness. Within these isolated communities, they can become less welcoming to those they do not recognise as their own. Guest workers from Turkey have distinct, fluid and multifaceted identities, which merge customs from home into new ways of living in Germany.
Returning time and again to the rural areas and subcultures of her childhood in southern Bavaria, Anna Aicher embarks on photographic examinations of the concepts of home and tradition. In projects such as Like Father, Like Son, she creates calm, concentrated images and enters into an intensive dialogue with her protagonists so that a special intimacy becomes visible.
Nominated by Sithara Pathirana, Project Manager for Triennial Expanded, Maximilian Glas explores the human encounter with nature in his project Weather Constructions. In an almost humorous way, he questions speculative processes of science by also undermining the project's own validity through the display of errors. What is special about Weather Constructions is that it is highly scientific while at the same time an experience for the senses.
Nominated by photographer and lecturer André Lützen, Altay Tuz explores the question of integration and identity in Turkish cultural clubs and cafés in Hamburg and Berlin in his project Members Only. Using his camera to gain access to these spaces, Tuz makes images of full of information, details and signs, ultimately making visible the symbiosis of tradition and the present.
Nominated by Ingo Taubhorn, Chief-Curator House of Photography/Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Simon Grunert's photographic practice is rooted in a documentary approach, but plays with its boundaries. In series including Senne 1 & 2, he often uses specific geographical settings as the basis for his stories but then adds pseudo-scientific or fictional elements, reducing his original intention of conveying a sense of place to the abstract.
Nominated by photographer and lecturer Linn Schröder, Julia Gaes is fascinated by bodies. Over several summers she accompanied burlesque performers and drag queens for her Polaroid work WIGS & GLOVES, reflecting a queer space that allows freedom beyond binary thinking worlds. With humour, eroticism, irony and tragedy, the performances in Gaes’ pictures are political and queerfeminist – subversive moments showing an incredible diversity.