One of the selected artists chosen for Issue 22 of the Photoworks Annual, Cemre Yesil, became guest editor for our Instagram Takeover for a week, December 2015.
To follow be sure to visit instagram.com/photoworks_uk
Cemre Yesil is a Turkish photographer living and working in Istanbul and London. Her BA is in photography and she holds an MA in visual arts from Sabanci University. She is a current practice-based PhD student in London College of Communication. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. She had attended several artist residencies including Atelier de Visu in Marseille (directed by the Magnum Photographer Antoine D’agata). She has won several awards including AGM Magnum Masterclass NY 2014 ‘Confronting Fear’ over-night assignment, Prix de la Photographie Competition PARIS- press and portrait category. She was nominated for the Paul Huf Award 2014 of Amsterdam Photography Museum FOAM.
A selection from her ‘An/other’ series which is a part of Istanbul Modern Museum’s photography collection was featured in LANDSKRONA FOTOFESTIVAL (Sweden) in August 2014. Recently, OBSCURA PHOTOFESTIVAL (Penang/Malesia) presented her ‘Milk tooth’ series as one of the print exhibitions in 2014 AWPS which is curated by Yumi Goto. Apart from her personal projects, she lectures on history of photography and photography techniques in Istanbul Bilgi University and Koç University. Recent publications include ‘Kesik / Cut’ (2010), ‘We have not lived through such a thing.’ (2012) and ‘This was’ (2013). She just had her third solo exhibition titled ‘This was’ in May 2014. She is represented by Daire Gallery in Istanbul.
My photographic series and text-based works focus on personal intimacies. Photographing helps me to see the things that I cannot see with the naked eye. For me, wavering between the indispensability and impossibility of building relationships, the actual act of photographing becomes a breather in the ebb and flow of life. I also see photography as a tool to communicate and interact with my surroundings as well as research the ways human develop relationships between themselves and the world they inhabit.
I am very much interested in exploring the value of the medium of photography through its role in intimate relationships as well. I believe that photographs as objects have a great power to create pathways to rethink about the connections we share as humans with each other and with the natural world that surrounds us. For me, photography is one way to re-connect with being; I aim to create an intimate conversation between me and the people I photograph and finally, facilitate a similar conversation between my photographs and the viewer.
