Cemil Batur G�k�eer’s photoseries exploring a fictional murder mystery in Turkey caught the attention of George Georgiou and Vanessa Winship
�What is interesting about the way he works is that it is in part an investigation, but completely at the mercy of his own personal interaction with what unfolds,� says George Georgiou, who was one of the Turkish photographer�s teachers on a year-long workshop run by the International Summer School of Photography, along with his partner Vanessa Winship.��There is an element of accident in his photography that he totally embraces.�
In his work, Go?kc?eer will intuitively switch materials and techniques to allow, as Georgiou puts it, �interference to surface on the image�. This accidental element is evident in Tangle, in which�a fictional investigation into a murder develops as a stream of consciousness in�a series of images that take us into the psychological Badlands of Central Anatolia.
The story unfolds from a murder mystery that begins when a woman goes missing. After three days, her body is found in a pit of snow, her death said�to be the result of a love affair with�a genie. But Go?kc?eer worked out that�the �spiritual genie� was a ruse to keep secret what had really happened � a secret that would shame the community, and possibly result in the punishment of the woman�s actual murderers.
As it says in an introduction to Tangle: �It seemed as if everyone knew of the�crime, but to maintain the community�s dignity it was wrapped in mystique to obscure what needed to stay concealed in the dark.� Go?kc?eer had planned to explore the culture and geography of Central Anatolia, but upon hearing this murder story he soon found himself tangled in a web of intrigue.
And intrigue is precisely what he photographs in Tangle. The project starts with a simple landscape; we see what appears to be a dried-up lake, its bed cracked; only a few patches of dampness remain. Go?kc?eer moves from landscape into villages � isolated dwellings covered in a blanket of snow, places where dark things happen, where everyone knows the secrets that must remain forever hidden.
Black-and-white goes to colour, prints are ripped and scratched. As Go?kc?eer continues his investigations, people�appear out of cars, with their backs turned. We see what looks like a mortuary slab. Male prowess looms large in the series � in the cafes, on the street. A�man raises his middle finger at Go?kc?eer, another is on a prayer mat, praying to Allah, perhaps for guidance or forgiveness.
Tangle is more about a mood than an explanation � an examination of what lies beneath the genie stories. �His work attempts to recreate and respond to his experience,� says Winship. �Sometimes he turns the camera on himself, sometimes he approaches themes and subjects that are apparently intangible, often complex, and difficult to grapple with photographically.�
Find more of Cemil�s work�here.
First published in the January 2014�issue. You can buy the issue here.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.