Andréas Lang - Broken Memories

18 April-14 July 2023, Depo, Istanbul
Curators: Refik Akyüz, Serdar Darendeliler

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Andréas Lang has been working in Türkiye on questions of memory and history since receiving a residency grant from the Tarabya Cultural Academy. Through the images in 'Broken Memories', he reflects on disappearance, discontinuity, and the different historical layers embedded in the landscapes of Türkiye, leaving visible traces of a collective memory that has been rendered invisible.

In his practice of what he calls “visual archaeology,” Lang seeks to uncover the different layers of history, mythology, and the present. His photographs appear suspended between past, present, and future, resembling scenes or sets from a film. In this way, they become spaces where imagination and its traces coexist with—and sometimes intersect or conflict with—the social, political, and ecological realities embedded in the subject.

Following an intensive research process, Lang develops his work by travelling to the places he investigates and photographing them on site. In 'Broken Memories', he applies this visual methodology to Türkiye’s past and collective memory, examining the writing and erasure of history. Focusing particularly on places connected to the late Ottoman Empire, Armenian heritage, the 1915 genocide, and the early years of the Republic, he explores what is remembered and what is gradually being forgotten.

Curated by Refik Akyüz and Serdar Darendeliler of Geniş Açı Project Office (GAPO), the exhibition was accompanied by a book published by Kerber Verlag, Berlin, in July 2023.