Two-channel audio-visual Installation
5 mins 48 secs loop
Degree Show Exhibition – MA in Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London, 2005
Link to Video Documentation: https://vimeo.com/406758686

When I was there, you had already left was developed from material collected on a journey in the areas of Turkey that my grandparents were born and had to abandon. Two visual sequences are projected onto screens that are suspended in space. One is the repetition of a short shot of a couple looking with persistence at the camera. The other juxtaposes a voyeuristic look on a lone figure waiting at the bus stop with images documenting details of the landscape. The soundtrack blends the narrative of a female character with location sound recordings. The story moves between past and present and is told in a quiet, melancholic and internal tone. The narrative structure of the work follows the movement implicated in the title, of an action always coming after an original event, a past following a present. In this manner, the image always follows after the retelling of the memories linked to its existence. The residues of memories, of events and of a culture are blend with images, spaces and experiences that come to displace them. The work constructs the landscape of memory.

CREDITS
Direction, Production, Camera, Editing and Sound – Aikaterini Gegisian
Location Assistant and Guide – Konca Aykan
Produced with the support of Selcuk Aykan, Leleg Institute Project – Turkey, Arts & Humanities Research Council – England