Words by Kim Knoppers for Foam Magazine

"I stayed at the Kremlin Palace and spent a whole day in Amsterdam

As a holiday destination, Turkey is multifaceted. There is a dizzyingly impressive cultural

history of many civilizations, ranging from the Lydians, the Greeks and the Romans to the

Seljuks, Armenians, Kurds and Ottomans, all of which, and more, left their traces (although

much has been done to disregard or erase many of those traces accidently or deliberately).

The country varies from the pastel moonscape of ‘fairy chimneys’ and tuff cones of

Cappadocia in the centre of the country to the rough and rainy Pontic Mountains up against

the border with Georgia, and from the sparkling Aegean Sea with its fashionable bathing

resorts in the west to the strategically located Northern Karadeniz, in the news recently

because of blocked grain deliveries from Ukraine.

Despite ups and downs (a global pandemic, a series of ISIS-related explosions close to tourist

areas and a coup attempt in 2016), Turkey still greatly appeals to European and Russian

tourists. Yet most European holidaymakers with middling incomes opt for a far from

adventurous ‘all inclusive’ holiday with all-you-can-eat buffets and all-you-can-drink bars, in

or near Antalya. Photographer Ekin Özbiçer became fascinated by these ‘all inclusives’. She

was especially interested in the hotels built as replicas of buildings in European cities and the

Ottoman Empire. ‘I was in Antalya for three days. I stayed at the Kremlin Palace and spent a

whole day in Amsterdam.’

A man lies sunbathing alone in front of the pastel-hued towers of the Kremlin. A large

swimming pool is surrounded by Amsterdam canalside houses. In the spa are the floral

motifs of Iznik pottery and the restaurant is adorned with scenes from Ottoman palaces

painted by Oriental masters. The ‘all inclusives’ that Özbiçer photographed with mild irony

are a curious amalgam of different cultural identities.

The all inclusives do everything they can to obscure the fact that their European and Russian

guests are in Turkey. Why do people want a holiday in Turkey that creates the illusion that

they’re in their own country, or at least somewhere in Europe? (Turkey has been a

prospective member of the EU ever since 1999. Negotiations have proceeded in, to say the

least, fits and starts.) The all inclusives are also popular with middle-class people from within

Turkey and with tourists from Turkic states. Why do guests from the same country or region

want to believe the false impression of being somewhere in Europe or Russia? For both

groups, the same things probably apply: ‘exotic’, a dash of adventure, familiar, cheap. To

Europeans and Russians their stay feels exotic because it’s in Turkey, but safely familiar

because of the European architecture. And it’s a good bit cheaper than a holiday on the

coast of Spain, Italy or France. To the Turks and others from the same region their stay feels

exotic because it’s set against the background of Amsterdam or Moscow, yet safely familiar

because of the Turkish cuisine and Turkish-speaking staff. More importantly still, it’s cheaper

than a stay in Europe. And easier. Tourism without the hassle of travelling. Many Europeans

don’t realise that Turks need visas if they want to travel to Schengen countries. Whether or

not they can get a tourist visa depends mainly on their economic circumstances.

If there’s anything that Replica (2016) by Ekin Özbiçer shows convincingly, then it’s that we

are creatures of habit. Although our Instagram accounts seem like a succession of the most

awesome adventures, most of us do best with structure, recognition, order and regularity,

with just a smidgin of adventure.

The photographs in Replica look like film stills. Özbiçer watched lots of films and then took

screen shots to study the colours, gestures and architecture. An astonishing feeling for

composition, colour and stylised beauty makes the pictures look staged; even the leftovers

of fruit on the white tablecloth of the abandoned lunch table look lovely. The

cinematographic setting and the positioning of people or objects in the architectonic space

contribute to that impression. The photos suggest that nothing has been left to chance, yet

the opposite is true. ‘I am holding the camera, eyes open, click-click-click, forgetting that I

photograph.’ For fashion and editorial shoots – for magazines including Vogue, Marie Claire

and or for brands like Begüm Khan Kutnia – Özbiçer does indeed stage-manage

her photographs. But for her autonomous work Özbiçer sees the challenge in finding scenes

from indeterminate daily life and freeze them with her camera – scenes in which she does

not intervene at all, but that nevertheless seem staged. Replica is the result of shooting

many photos, intuitively but with an exceptionally trained eye, and a careful selection

process afterwards. Özbiçer retained this way of working from a job she had while she was

studying for her degree in fine arts at Marmara University, as an assistant photographer of

weddings in high-society Istanbul.

With hindsight it’s clear that the weddings of the Turkish jet-set consolidated her earlier

interest in Turkish social classes and hierarchy. As the only child of a left-wing, secular, upper middle-class family, she was educated at a French high school in Istanbul that was attended by the daughters and sons of the city’s very richest. She was fascinated by the combination of intellectual and economic elites, and by the differences in class and

hierarchy.

Özbiçer’s series Replica (2016), Auto Orientalism (ongoing) and Blue Flag (2012-2013)

amount to aesthetic research into the Turkish way of life and its class system. They express a

curiosity about her own class, other classes, and the places where they mix or clash. In her

photographs she subtly and sensitively uses humour to lay it all bare. She never ridicules

people and tries to look at other classes as she does at her own, with wonder, surprise and

an aesthetic eye. ‘I feel like a tourist in Turkey. I belong and I don’t belong. Who are we?

What is it to be Turkish, living west of Asia and east of Europe?’