Double Portraits (Displaced), 2009
Photography, C-type prints from colour negative, six diptychs, various sizes
Based on the long history of painted double portraits, this set of photographic diptychs aims to extend the performative process of portraiture through the relationship of two participants, displaced by migration.
Made on commission for a show during the Istanbul Biennial, 2009, the series questions how the process of photography can be used as a relational tool - literally to set up and portray intimate relations, challenged by distance. For each of the diptychs, I photographed two people from the Turkish community, one living in London and one in Istanbul. The two people nominated each other as their ‘counterpart’ for the portrait. The work hence portrays a relationship between two people: family ties, friendship, romance - while at the same time portraying each individual in their respective homes, locating them subtly in their culture and country. It also portrays the separation, distance and perhaps longing between people.
In reference to the history of painted double portraiture the two images create visual links across the separation of each clearly defined image, and hence attempt to build a visual bridge between the two people – connected yet displaced.