BANU CENNETOGLU ::::

This installation of photographs examines the ways in which a space or land is recognized and visually interpreted when it is in a condition of continuous de-territorialization. The contested “space” in Determined Barbara is Barbara, a territory that was transformed after the 90s into a temporary military training ground for Stabilization Force (SFOR) units in Glamo?, a settlement in former Yugoslavia whose present and previous inhabitants have become refugees and temporary dwellers. It is not only about the conditions of space, but also the perceptual confusion we experience endeavoring to understand established “space politics.” Cenneto?lu invites us to discover a potential inherent in, that is, not wholly occluded by, the actualities of this space: the fictional aspect of a documentary site as a photographic series.

The interval between two types of knowledge: the postwar reality of Barbara and its visual interpretation create a spatial understanding for each viewer. By investigating transitory and unstable spaces the artist searches for the power of their uncertain conditions through the paradoxical nature of photography, whose ontological aspect provides information, but also a subjective fiction that plays with the images. Generally, we recognize the physical quality of the city that focuses on urban texture and east-European architecture, or, rather, its physical surroundings. The whole series is a construction that investigates overlapping identities of the space. The issue of reality and the fictional aspect of the site through the photographs are “problematized” by Cenneto?lu’s installation as a re-creation of reality, a structure of subjective and ambiguous information and a search for a latent “potential” in a now uncertain zone.