Broken Memories Made Visible as One Excavates Beneath the Surface

Refik Akyüz, Serdar Darendeliler

(Text for the publication accompanying Andréas Lang’s 'Broken Memories' exhibition, on view at Depo from 18 April to 14 July 2023.)

Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, 2023, pp.10-14, 170-174, 182-187

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Andréas Lang’s book 'Broken Memories' is the result of his artistic research in Türkiye into the themes of memory and history.

The research began in 2018, when Lang received a residency grant from the Tarabya Cultural Academy in Istanbul. In his photographs and videos, Lang reflects on disappearance, discontinuity, and different historical layers that leave visible traces of a collective memory that has long been rendered invisible. He takes a contemporary approach to history, focusing particularly on places connected to the late Ottoman Empire, Armenian heritage, and the events of 1915. In the working method 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.

The book includes, alongside the curatorial text written by Refik Akyüz and Serdar Darendeliler for the exhibition at Depo, a text by academic Aylin Vartanyan Dilaver. Published in English, Armenian, and Turkish, 'Broken Memories' was published by Kerber Verlag, Berlin.

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[Click here to view and download the full article as an original PDF in English, Turkish, and Armenian.]