gelibolu

To Honour Those Who Live, 2015

Video installation

HD video with sound: 5 minutes each

32" flatscreen TV monitors, media players, wooden platforms.

2.4m (length), 1.8m (width), 0.82m (height)

Gelibolu, No Vacancy Gallery, Melbourne



I am interested in the social devices and mnemonic aids that shape collective memories, enabling us to remember people or events as though they were part of our personal past.

A 32" TV monitor is almost exactly the size of the Commonwealth headstone. I was interested in using the TV as a communicative device, connecting past with present, in the same way that a memorial or headstone connects people to the past. This work was born out of a desire to juxtapose these two images, while creating something that was evocative and beautiful.

The TV monitors show video footage of weeds and aged concrete found in ordinary cemeteries, a stark contrast to the order and immaculate nature of the Commonwealth war cemetery. Television screens that normally provide and feed information to viewers about world events are taken out of context to question the neat and heroic conception of war and the British colonial mission. Without disregarding those that have lost their lives to war, we might ask: what are the impacts of war for those that live through it, whether as soldier or civilian, or distant observer? And how do they extend through (or bleed through) into the lives of future generations?


gelibolu


Link to panel discussion 'A Turkish Australian perspective on Gallipoli'
with Bulent Dellal OAM, Serpil Senelmis and Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios




Acknowledgements

Production assistance: Gus Boke