Innovative Curatorial Projects – Paris / Singapore
Sener Ozmen
*1971, Şırnak, Turkey. Lives and Works in Diyarbakır, Turkey.
Sener Özmen is a Kurdish artist, art critic, and writer. His writing on art was published in various specialized papers and in Turkish daily national newspapers. Focused on Turkish art from the 1990s, he takes part in and reports on national and international art scenes. His poems, novels, and comics where published in Kurdish and Turkish with a few having been translated into English. As a member of the PEN Club International, he was awarded the Swiss Prix Meuly in 2005. His art, photographs and videos reflect the current political situation in Turkey and across the globe.
Using a sometimes disturbing form of irony aimed at provocation, his work aims to expose the violence in South-western Turkey. Over the past 15 years, Sener's work was featured in various group exhibitions including Look Again, Proje4L, at the Istanbul Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul in 2001, Future Democracy, at the Akbank Culture and Arts Centre, Istanbul in 2003, the 9th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul in 2005, and the Kunst-Film Biennale Köln in 2005. In 2005 he held his first solo exhibition, Vidéo Surveillance_002, at Galerie Schleicher+Lange in Paris.
Our village / Turkey / 2004 / 7'09 / 4:3
Two Young girls are mechanically singing thrice the same traditional Kurdish song. Even if they remain impassive, little by little their faces are covered by marks of violence and therefore places the viewer in an uncomfortable situation. The feeling of uneasiness is reinforced by the song’s words on the beauty of the mountains while reminding us that female mountain dwellers have no future apart from being shepherds.
About Lowave
Lowave is a platform for curatorial research based in Singapore and Paris. Its activities range from exhibition concepts, film programming and live performances, to artistic consultations, publications, and teaching. The singularity of Lowave's work is its international scope with a strong interest in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, highlighting emerging artists and the use of interdisciplinary and intercultural crossings.
Lowave was co-founded by its director Silke Schmickl in 2002 and consists of four main members including Mickaël Robert-Gonçalves, Jeremy Chua and Patricia Cartier-Millon, as well as a dense network of project-based partners. Lowave has collaborated with institutions such as Centre Georges Pompidou, La Cinematheque française, The British Film Institute, 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, Beirut Art Fair 2014, Pera Museum Istanbul, KIT – Kunst-im-Tunnel Düsselforf, The Arts House Singapore, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, and UNESCO.
Lowave Collection
Lowave's film and video collection has been built between 2002 and 2014 and features over 250 video artists and filmmakers from around the world. The label has contributed to an important number of international exhibitions, biennials, film and video festivals, as well as academic programmes. As Lowave's activities evolve, we have stopped our film distribution and our catalogue serves now as an archive that documents over a decade of film and video art history.
A selection of our DVDs is on sale at Re:Voir in Paris.
Readings
– Presentation of Singapour mon amour as part of In the light of history: Visions of a nascent nation conceived by Asian film archive Singapore in collaboration with National Gallery Singapore, 2016
– Silke Schmickl on body politics, video and the moving image at Beirut art fair 2014. Curator interview by Kriti Bajaj, in: Art Radar – Contemporary trends and news from Asia and beyond, 2014
– Nicole Brenez, Good vibrations. The french dvd label Lowave takes itself to the edges of film culture, in: Springerin, 2010
– Julie Crenn, In/Flux. Meeting with Katadiou Diallo, Dominique Malaquais and Silke Schmickl, in: Seismopolite. Journal of Art and Politics, 2013
– In lieu of absence. Taysir Batniji in conversation with Silke Schmickl, in: Ibraaz, Platform 003, 2012