Özge Akarsu
Özge Akarsu studied Law and Philosophy in Istanbul. Afterwards, she moved to Belgium. She began a PhD on Spinoza and modernity at the University of Antwerp. Meanwhile, her fascination for film grew and she started studying animated film at KASK in Ghent. She is currently a doctoral researcher at RITCS in Brussels.
Early in her career, Özge Akarsu was strongly influenced by Turkish painter Deniz Bilgin; Agarsu was particularly fascinated by the effort to transform history and observations about people and places into visual language. But Özge Akarsu also discovered people outside the visual arts who inspired her. Writer Orhan Pamuk’s work ethic has always been an inspiration, as has the British band Radiohead. Akarsu also cites Jean-Luc Godard’s powerful affinity with text, literature and philosophy as inspirational. ‘Every frame in his films seems to be constructed like a painting, with different colours and perspectives – that takes tremendous courage!’
The eye and, by extension, the gaze occupy a prominent place in her paintings and animated films. The human or animal hybrid creatures often possess a doleful, somewhat fragmented gaze reminiscent of Cubist portraits. When discussing this gaze, Akarsu refers to the weight ever-present in her mind and heart.
‘This heaviness materialised because I never felt fully at home in my body in the country where I was born and raised. The eye was always watching. Its breath was always panting down our necks. Deviating from the rules meant stepping into the crosshairs. Ultimately, the system will punish you either way. And if you refuse, it will banish you into loneliness, where heaviness becomes your lot. The system is created by your family, neighbours, judges, the police, your friends, etc. It is everywhere and nowhere. Reading, philosophy and study provide a way of seeing those strange, oppressive feelings differently. However, media also taught me to better understand the situation I was in, or rather, in which we were in.
Özge Akarsu shares her version of philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of coessence in the animated film Being with the Other (2020). It is only in the midst of others that a person exists. Individuality seems impossible without collectivity.
The experimental documentary Emine (2020) unfolds around a letter to Emine Bulut eight months after she was murdered by her ex-husband. Here, Akarsu shows the power of the collective, primarily male gaze, firmly entrenched in Turkey’s legal system. Emine Bulut’s murder was also a response to a divorce in which Emine, the wife, had rejected the relationship. The murder was considered somewhat permissible because the victim had stepped outside society’s strictures; as men, the perpetrators needn’t fear repercussions for their actions.
In Territorium (2019), Akarsu plays with the increasingly popular idea of returning to the simplicity of nature. The animated film unfolds around the question: what really happens when untamed nature invades your comfort zone?
DE