Nina Kertselli

My work is an attempt to create visuals for the research on the migrant artist persona, carried out by Zeynep Arda. Being one of the research subjects myself (I have left Moscow in 1994 for what was intended as a year-long journey and turned out to be a life spent between Cologne, New York, Ankara and Izmir respectively), I would like to think that I am qualified to reflect on the memories, impressions, observations of the artists-participants.

Reading/listening to the many interviews translated into English, I will try to visualize the most memorable scenes, moments, emotions recalled by the migrant artists, the moments made so much more precious by the global threat of coronavirus. I would like to try and reflect on them as if they were my own - a visual diary of a continuous journey of many paths.

The result of such undertaking will be a number of drawings, some of them to be presented at the opening of the Transmaking exhibition. The rest of them hopefully will make their way into the final publication, book about the Migrant Artist Persona by Zeynep Arda.