"Abandoned battleground is a photography project that focuses on urban peripheries and the objects that were thrown away or not integrated in the view. The foundation of my project lies in the photographs I capture during walks in gentrified areas such as Wedding, Moabit, Pankow, Neukölln, and Kreuzberg."
Artist: Gülsen Namıduru
Project: Abandoned Battleground
One of our jury's favorite project, from the October 2023 opencall.
"Berlin is renowned for its positive qualities as well as its reputation for being dirty. Rather than merely perceiving this as a failure of the city, the concept of "rubbish" and its correspondent in state agenda, waste management, emerges as a form of urban exclusion. To highlight this exclusion, I adopt an archaeological approach to rubbish within the urban periphery. I focus on groups of objects that are out-of-use, discarded, and abandoned in the city."
"After a selection process, I isolate the part that best describes the reality clash in the photo. Then I edit that part of the photo by using digital tools, firstly, to accentuate the contrast between what is considered the waste and the city. Secondly, to create a new ‘whole’, from that isolated part, to let abandoned objects invade the fabric of urban reality. This process help me to turn my practice into a counter attack to our understanding of hygene and exclusion of what is regarded as rubbish."
© Gülsen Namıduru