Esra Ersen

Born 1970, Ankara, Turkey. Lives and works in Istanbul and London

What is it like to find yourself an immigrant in a foreign country, trying to learn the language, the customs, the rules – trying to fit into a totally new context, while also trying to keep hold of your own sense of who you are? Esra Ersen challenges us to think about the ways in which we construct an ‘identity’ for ourselves, and how that identity is affected by the different places and contexts in which we find ourselves. She uses photography and video to record the struggles and aspirations of people often caught between cultures and languages, and she confronts us with art in unexpected places (such as a kebab house), making us think about the ways in which different places affect our responses to what we see.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2006 Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany

2005 O.K Centre for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria

2002 Bild Museet, Umea, Sweden

2001 If You Could Speak Swedish, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

Selected Group Exhibitions

2006 27th São Paulo Biennale, São Paulo, Brazil
Cooling Out, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland

2005 In 2052 Malmo Will No Longer be ‘Swedish’, Rooseum Centre for Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden
Moving...on..., NGBK, Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin, Germany
Pursuit of Happiness, Utrecht, The Netherlands

2004 Exciting Europe, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany
Re:Location, Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain, Luxembourg

2003 Poetic Justice, 8th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey
It Is Hard To Touch the Real, Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany
How Latitudes Become Forms, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA

2002 Manifesta 4, Europan Biennial of Contemporary Art, Frankfurt, Germany
Pause, 4th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju, South Korea

2001 Becoming a Place, P4L Istanbul Contemporary Art Centre, Istanbul, Turkey

1995 Orient/ation, 4th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey

Selected Bibliography

Esra Ersen, Arbeiten/Works 1998–2005, Linz: O.K Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, 2005

Charles Esche and Lesley Young, Cartes Blanches, exh. cat., Geneva: 10th Biennial of Moving Images, 2003

Søren Grammel, Butterflies, exh. cat., Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 2002

Lene Crone Jensen, Esra Ersen: Unterwegs nach Timbuktu, exh. cat., Berlin: ifa Galerie, 2002

Maria Lind, Under the Sign of the City, exh. cat., Bonn: Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2001
Moving On, exh. cat., Berlin: NGBK, 2005

Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, The [Un]Common Place – Art, Public Space and Urban Aesthetics in Europe, Rome: Fondaziona Adriano Olivetti, 2005

Céline Poulin, Sous les ponts, le long de la rivière II, Luxembourg: Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain, 2005

Arjan Reinders, Pursuit of Happiness in Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht, 2005