Emoplux

The five selected artists for the 2023 edition exhibit photo and video works that explore themes of identity and raise thought-provoking questions. Their works often transcend the two-dimensional frame of the image, inviting the viewer to engage in an immersive and experiential encounter with the artwork. Nominated for the EMoP Arendt Award on the theme of Rethinking Identity they go beyond classic clichés of identity.
Cihan Cakmak‘s unique approach addresses the memories of a fractured Kurdish identity by creating dreamlike personal situations that challenge social fragmentation and the resulting isolation experienced by this community. Using the female body as an instrument of power, Ulla Deventer, through a particular aesthetic that draws both from photographic documentation and contemporary art installation, deconstructs stereotypes about prostitution. Deconstructed self-representations and fragmentary perceptions of the body by Karolina Wojtas create new fictions that question concepts of time and space from a social and relational perspective. Livia Melzi‘s work takes a different approach, as she explores identity and representation through her research on the Tupinambá capes, which were used in anthropophagic rituals by the Tupi warrior tribes of the Brazilian coast. Her work challenges the archives and representations surrounding this topic.The question of cultural identity is intertwined with autobiographical elements in the multimedia work of Jojo Gronostay (born in Germany with Ghanaian roots). Objects and images of objects and body fragments are decontextualized and presented on an unusual scale, playing on the interrelationships between colonialism and capitalism.