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Thinking about ‘TURKS!’
This video started really a long time ago in my head, while I was living in Ankara. It got more shape and had an urgency of its own since I’ve moved to Amsterdam. In the last 6 years that I’ve lived here, I’ve been mingling in my head the thoughts of belonging, a lot of orientalism, the concept of ‘home’, questions like: is there a home for me to go back to? what would you do if you are so aware of your own -small but existing- nostalgia towards a place that occupies a certain space only in your head and does not correspond to something in real life?. and the fact that i’m not even a stranger here in Amsterdam anymore, although I was/am one ‘who came today and stayed tomorrow’. It was time to accept my already very long stay and life here.
I started in the last years to build that non-existing place back in reality by being more in touch with what is ‘there’ and looking at what is ‘here’. It was my sudden big fear that led me towards trying to be more than ‘the migrated one’, mentally and socially.
‘The migrated’ is mostly referred as the one who mentally/intellectually/emotionally stays where s/he has left, conservatively keeping the tradition.
It was one of those fears as big as the one i have about becoming a lonely stubborn ‘lady’ who does not leave the house and dies one day amongst boxes of pizzas she ate in the last years, or the one that one day nobody of my past remembers me. Stupid but it is there. I think everyone has such fears, and it is not more stupid than being scared of caterpillars(no offense), but it might be as stupid as being afraid of big cockroaches;)
Anyway, ‘Turks!’ is the other way around of this whole story, it is about the other conservative. The outside eye that conservatively observes, judges and classifies me(the migrated). The video takes a look at the fear of the unknown, the far away, the unfamiliar, be it the Turks, Martians or the Chinese. It started with my urge to put the sources from Hollywood and American Tv Series to see what kind of a picture they would make when it comes to Turks, what would they say about ‘us’ (I take the word ‘Turks’ as people living in Turkey or originating from Turkey, but not as Turks as oppose to Kurds or another ethnicity. Here in Amsterdam and in international context I have always come across that, ‘Turks’ never refer to the nation, it always refers to the place of origin).
From the beginning of this video, there was a possibility, -a big one- of getting an expected result, but I also wanted to see, what I can do with it, how do I deal with the picture I get, another cliché. Do I repeat it or what?
I find humor as one of the best ways to bring out possibilities and references i have never thought of, it frees my brain and makes me see different ways to look at things, a refreshing one! It also leaves such an impression on people, that stays a long time. I’m not much talking about the humor in staged comedy though. However, you can make a good comedy from the serious films. By taking things and especially themselves very seriously, all the movies here were very good materials for me to work with and when they come together they make a picture that i don’t have to do much about, but to decorate, and make the dreams come true.

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