Enis Köstepen and Irmak Karasu
filmmaking duo
Enis Köstepen and Irmak Karasu are filmmakers interested in how political thinking implicates forms of cultural practices. Köstepen and Karasu have been conversing on the powers of personal and public mourning for a long while.
Enis Köstepen’s practice includes film criticism, production, research, and activism in anti-war, urban rights, and freedom of expression. In his practice he has been interested in the powers of creative collectives and politics of film culture.
Köstepen’s filmography as producer include: Yellow Letters (dir. İlker Çatak, in development); Hold Still (dir. Berke Baş, in post-production); Frenzy (dir. Emin Alper, Venice International Film Festival, 2015); and Beyond the Hill (dir. Emin Alper, Berlin International Film Festival, 2012).
Selected publications include: “Bakur: Chronicles of Unrealized Futures,in Reimagining the Future of Human Rights: Social Justice, Environmental Justice, and Democracy in the Global South, ed. Jessica Corredor-Villamil (Bogotá: Dejusticia, 2022); “On Yılın Ardından Emek Sineması Mücadelesi,” Beyond.istanbul 9 (Beyoğlu: Mekanda Adalet Derneği, 2020);
“A Story of Impunity: The Temizöz Trial in Turkey,[/url” in Justice through Transitions: Conflict, Peacemaking and Human Rights in the Global South, César Rodríguez Garavito and Meghan L. Morris, eds. (Bogotá: Dejusticia, 2018).
Irmak Karasu’s work as an artist and a filmmaker is informed by her attention to the forms of affect. In her practice she focuses on personal histories within the landscapes of oppression and violence.
Karasu’s filmography as director include: Kızıltoprak (in development); The Couch Is Purring (co- directed with Julia Sharpe, in production); Mamaville (Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Oberhausen, 2020); Edifice (İstanbul Film Festival, 2015).
Selected exhibitions include: Core Program Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, 2020; School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Booth, EXPO CHICAGO 2019, Chicago, 2019; On Site Impromptus, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Jing’An, 2017; and Tahteravalli (performance, directed with Nihat Karatasli), Santralistanbul Contemporary Art Museum, İstanbul, 2012.
For BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice, they will explore the ways in which commoning around grief could lead to the alignment of disparate political struggles that try to deal with their losses on their own. For such an inquiry they will collect instances of grief expressed in various forms of media. The instances that they are after are moments of affect that sparkle unexpectedly. These are momentary bursts that take place where a particular tension between public space and the personal experience of loss releases itself. They believe that these utterances that hold a capacity to affect, and that are not audible in everyday nor in regular politics, are potent to convey the tense traffic between the personal and the public.
Enis and Irmak live and work in İstanbul, and are part of the BAK Cell, İstanbul, in the Fellowship for Situated Practice.
Köstepen’s filmography as producer include: Yellow Letters (dir. İlker Çatak, in development); Hold Still (dir. Berke Baş, in post-production); Frenzy (dir. Emin Alper, Venice International Film Festival, 2015); and Beyond the Hill (dir. Emin Alper, Berlin International Film Festival, 2012).
Selected publications include: “Bakur: Chronicles of Unrealized Futures,in Reimagining the Future of Human Rights: Social Justice, Environmental Justice, and Democracy in the Global South, ed. Jessica Corredor-Villamil (Bogotá: Dejusticia, 2022); “On Yılın Ardından Emek Sineması Mücadelesi,” Beyond.istanbul 9 (Beyoğlu: Mekanda Adalet Derneği, 2020);
“A Story of Impunity: The Temizöz Trial in Turkey,[/url” in Justice through Transitions: Conflict, Peacemaking and Human Rights in the Global South, César Rodríguez Garavito and Meghan L. Morris, eds. (Bogotá: Dejusticia, 2018).
Irmak Karasu’s work as an artist and a filmmaker is informed by her attention to the forms of affect. In her practice she focuses on personal histories within the landscapes of oppression and violence.
Karasu’s filmography as director include: Kızıltoprak (in development); The Couch Is Purring (co- directed with Julia Sharpe, in production); Mamaville (Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Oberhausen, 2020); Edifice (İstanbul Film Festival, 2015).
Selected exhibitions include: Core Program Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, 2020; School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Booth, EXPO CHICAGO 2019, Chicago, 2019; On Site Impromptus, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Jing’An, 2017; and Tahteravalli (performance, directed with Nihat Karatasli), Santralistanbul Contemporary Art Museum, İstanbul, 2012.
For BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice, they will explore the ways in which commoning around grief could lead to the alignment of disparate political struggles that try to deal with their losses on their own. For such an inquiry they will collect instances of grief expressed in various forms of media. The instances that they are after are moments of affect that sparkle unexpectedly. These are momentary bursts that take place where a particular tension between public space and the personal experience of loss releases itself. They believe that these utterances that hold a capacity to affect, and that are not audible in everyday nor in regular politics, are potent to convey the tense traffic between the personal and the public.
Enis and Irmak live and work in İstanbul, and are part of the BAK Cell, İstanbul, in the Fellowship for Situated Practice.
