BLIK - GAZE - BAKIS   Duygu Cakir

In 2019, Duygu Cakir traveled around Turkey for three months to write the new edition of Politiken's "Turen går til Tyrkiet" (Travel Guide to Turkey). Using her iPhone, she sporadically started taking pictures of people crossing her path, captivated by the unpolished everyday moments.

When it comes to Turkey, there are often romanticized descriptions and images that play into clichés about a country caught between East and West, often reduced to two opposing sides. Images of mosques, dervishes, and veiled women on one side, belly dancers, Turkish raki, and beaches with half-naked ladies on the other. It is often in these contradictions that a country like Turkey is portrayed.

Duygu herself has been conditioned to seek out the clichés and the oriental undertones since she traveled to Turkey with her family as a child.

As Duygu's travels to the country became more frequent, her perspective shifted from the clichés to the immediate everyday moments. This became even more evident in 2019. A woman holding a bag, an elderly couple intertwining their arms, a lady waiting at the supermarket checkout. Completely ordinary moments that Duygu had missed because as a child, she always visited Turkey as a tourist.

BLIK challenges the persistent clichés and romanticized notions of a country like Turkey. It challenges the viewer and sharpens the focus on the Eurocentric perspective of Turkey. Because Turkey is more than just package holidays and Islamic politics. It is also about the unforeseen moments that travel brochures cannot prepare you for.

At the same time, BLIK also provides a firsthand insight into how a Danish-Turkish individual experiences Turkey, a country her grandfather once immigrated from.