Günübirlik

As Mamut Art Project is counting down for its new exhibit which will include more than 500 pieces from 50 different independent talent whom got selected from 1350 applications in its 7th year, our paths are crossed with director of the project Seren Kohen after her Portfolio Days in İstanbul, Diyarbakır, Mardin and Canakkale while she was getting ready for 19’ edition of Mamut . It’s a real mystery how Mamut project substrates its huge mission while it is growing and presenting wide anthology over photography, collage, installation, sculpture, video, painting, illustration and digital arts! “We decide as the Mamut team to whom should we make an offer for jury duty, and the names change each and every year. We are trying to focus to work with the names who have different visions, may take us, Mamut and artists forward with their suggestions and also the names that artists would love to show their pieces to. Jury, choose the artist from independent candidates without any limitation of age or education.” The way that Emin Berk makes us smile with his shots, as we are missing the summer and reminded of our childhood, and this is one of many reasons that excites us about Mamut. Seren feels the same… She defines her emotions while she is walking inside of Emin’s visual world “I spent most of my summers in Burgazada, and I may say that it was very special for me to have the chance to grew up, move freely and make friends over there as a child… The way that Emin’s visuals remind me of those days, it feels like his world could belong to any time. I believe that these photographs would take most of the people back to at least one of their memories and bring those feelings back…”

Emin Berk is the one who thinks that each story has its own language… He defines One-day series as “Photographs, that I shot for have a chance to look at myself as the third eye and to document.”, “It’s a need to be “photographed” for something to become a document and to impress itself as absolute the fact.”

He states his longing to his parents in this series, the starting points are his memories and relationship with summer vacations. As we are staring at these photos that take us back to our childhood, we think how human beings overthink about ‘summer vacation’ that much… And he joins us by saying “Yes but ‘summer vacation’ is so subjective yet ‘human beings’ are so general, it may differ to each person. My increasing longing to my family after I left home and started to take care of myself when I was very young –in Benjamin’s words when I was 17 (even if it’s not 15)-, and this made me to force my memories and create something like this.” Emin describes changing ‘summer’ in its on journey as ‘mom cooked meal and spending quality times with family, memories’, and setting village Kumcağız means “Sun cream, Algida umbrellas and hundreds of people who just taking vacation as his family.”

Mamut will be a step for Emin Berk to meet new people, to make new friends, lead up to the new series and stories… And can’t wait to meet you for many more for the 7th time on 3-7 April. Join this creative journey to turn your moments into memories!