Interview with Nevin Aladag

Nevin Aladag was born in Van,Turkey, in 1972 but has lived in Germany since she was two years old. Following the success of her video The Tezcan Family (2001) and the photo series Freeze (2003) and Jump (2004), with Voice Over (2006) she once again turns her attention to young people of Turkish origin in Germany: The fourteen-year-old Turks, who probably grew up in Germany and were socialized here, sing traditional elegies from their ancestors’ homeland. The ardently recited words tell of the loss of the homeland, of eviction, of craving and of nonreciprocated love. A semantic rift immediately opens between what is shown and what is heard, between the streetwise kids in rapper gear and the wise and antiquated.

Nevin, you were born in Turkey and grew up in Germany. Does the question of your own cultural identity play a role for you?
From my point of view we build what we could call cultural identity every day anew. We are exposed to a range of very different cultural influences; what is interesting is the evaluation of this potential.

In your works you trace the existential orientation of individual ethnic groups, mostly of young Turks growing up in Germany. How did it come about that you began to investigate this subject area?
When I was looking for a breakdancer for the video I produced in 1999, The Man Who Jumped Over His Own Shadow, I did most of my research in youth centres and came across a very creative group who, with the exception of one member, all came from very different migratory backgrounds. It fascinated me the way that a common non-verbal language was found in the form of breakdance and that a sense of belonging arose in the group that seemed to give them a footing that they didn’t appear to have found otherwise in society. I did several projects with them that referred to the forms of communication used in this old streetdance tradition and breakdance style and parallels to almost all other dance forms.

In your video Voice Over language also plays an important role alongside music, doesn’t it?
I grew up with music and dance as a means of expressing emotion. Singing sad songs and performing them within the family when you were in that very mood was completely normal for us and, more importantly, nothing to be embarrassed about. With Voice Over I found it all the more interesting the way these two German teenagers with Turkish and Kurdish backgrounds were singing such old and traditional elegies they had learned from their parents. As children we listened and shared in their yearning without making it our own. These particular songs are mostly about persecution and homelessness, and the two teenagers sang them with complete fervour. This made them into a kind of voice for their parents’ woe. Evidently, these songs have a certain relevance for their own situation in Germany.

What do you think is the cause of this new longing?
This new longing consists of a whole range of feelings, starting with a general lack of perspectives and reaching as far as a lack of acceptance within the society they live in. Basically, this is a therapeutic way of venting their suffering.

You are saying that an uncertain future causes people to return to their roots. It was Sartre who once commented that youth is homesick for its future. The statement made by your work, while concentrating on a very specific group within a specific context, can be generalized, can’t it?
I don’t think that a lack of perspectives necessarily has to lead people back to their own roots; it primarily leads to people being in search of something. And of course the statement of my video can be generalized. Not everyone would start singing elegies in that situation or one similar to it. It’s one of many forms of expressing oneself in comparable situations, so it’s merely representative.