Nevin Aladag
Voice Over, 2004

Artist
Nevin Aladag

Title
Voice Over

Year of creation
2006

Technology and duration
Film, 14 minutes with sound, Edition 1 of 5

Year of acquisition
2007

Acquisition of the foundation

Emigrant artists often process the time of painful adjustment in their works or communicate a harmonizing international aesthetic. But not Nevin Aladag. At the intersection of demarcation and fusion, the search for cultural roots and social connection in the new home, Nevin Aladag searches for the new definition of identity in a larger context. Her photos, videos and other works primarily deal with the feeling of alienation and the problems of self-determination among young Turks in Germany today. Aladag herself was born in Turkey and came to Germany with her family shortly afterwards - so the topic was obvious.

Even with “Voice Over” Nevin Aladag doesn’t shy away from differences and contradictions. The film is divided into three scenes that change several times: First, a harmonica can be seen being held out of the window of a car driving through a Berlin district with prefabricated buildings and consequently making a monotonous whirring sound due to the wind. A similar concept can be found in the recordings of the drums, on which the rain falls, creating different sounds.

In between, film clips are inserted several times that show young people of Turkish and Kurdish origin - recorded by a night vision camera - as they passionately sing songs from their countries of origin. It is remarkable that the young people dedicate themselves so seriously to the traditional songs of their ancestors' homeland, even though they were all born and raised in Germany as children of immigrants. Nevin Aladag cleverly shows that the contemporary life models of these people do not necessarily equate to a loss of tradition. She deciphers the problem and shows the real space of new identity designs.