Duration: 27'30"
Writing, editing, voice over: CANAN
Color with English subtitle
The devastatingly beautiful daughter of a poor family in the south-eastern
part of Turkey is the main character in the animated video work Exemplary
(2009). The storyline echoes ancient folk tales, and the narrative style is akin
to One Thousand and One Nights, but addresses the contemporary context
of women in Turkish society, imbued with tensions that oscillate between
secular values and the emergent sensitivities of moral conservatives and
institutionalised religion.
Through the life of the main protagonist the narrative problematises the
oppressiveness of the institutions of marriage and family, the political and
religious instrumentalisation of the female body and the implementation of
the notion of female beauty as a topos of orientalisation and consumerist
exploitation. The video uses abundant visual vocabulary that resembles
classical Ottoman miniature illuminations and calligraphy, many of them
adapted from their original forms and combined with collaged fragments. |
