Bengü Karaduman, 1974

Born in Germany in 1974, Bengü Karaduman graduated from the Department of Costume and Stage Design, Mimar Sinan University, and went on to study New Media Arts in Saarbrucken.

In her works Karaduman shows the multilayered nature of reality perception: how the concrete situations we face in everyday life are individually redefined in our conscious and unconscious minds. In the video installation, “Dreamscapes”, she uses dreams as her starting point to reflect on the “real life” iconic images engraved in our unconscious. The shadows of sculptures placed between the projector and the wall are purged of the details of reality. The work includes scenes from the artist’s dreams and is based on the themes of “reward and punishment,” “drawing attention to oneself,” and “looking for one’s place.” In the first scene of the triptych, a curator opens a bottle of champagne to celebrate her success; the champagne pops in her face to reveal the guilt associated with success. In the second scene the figure of the artist sits in front of a mirror, while in the video she gets up from one chair to sit on another and repeats this movement in an endless cycle. This repeated quest for a place is a physical expression of our attempt to find ourselves whilst in different places. By ultimately directing her outward gaze toward herself, Karaduman effectively confronts herself in the mirror. In the final scene, she seeks her home by space travel. However, the external environment in the video rapidly changes making it impossible for her to define and find her home. Even though she has created a place for herself in a spacecraft in infinite space, Karaduman shows the impossibility of truly belonging to a place.