Esra Ersen’s concern is with cultural diversity and the identity of marginalised communities and individuals – or more precisely the individual’s use of cultural ammunition in the fight to resist the social force and dominant ideology of the majority. Her method is to focus on the small incidents and events (of language, behaviour, social interaction) that encapsulate larger meanings.
Her process involves acute sensitivity to the context in which her work is presented, and the range of meanings that it will have for different audiences as a result.
The video If You Could Speak Swedish (2001), for instance, was shown simultaneously in the Moderna Museet and in the Jerusalem Grill House in Stockholm, a kebab restaurant frequented by immigrants. This sensitivity to context is a key idea for the International exhibition, and makes Esra Ersen’s work especially appropriate for it.
Ersen’s work takes many forms: video, photographs, installations and architectural essays. Waiting Area (2004) proposed a redesign of the Citizenship section of the Municipal Building in Innsbruck, Austria, in order to subvert or reverse the power relations literally built into this situation. Through anthropological observation and documentation, Ersen has also created mises-en-scene to analyse the indeterminacy of situations, an exercise that highlights the over-determination of everyday life.
Lewis Biggs
