Turkish magazine nokta get in trouble for remake of Photo Op
sorry we don’t have the skills to translate this for you all
here’s the link to their article and our call for the right to freedom of expression
on the 13th September 2015 nokta magazine published with a cover image of turkish president Erdogan taking a selfie in front of the funeral parade of a turkish soldier killed in combat with the PKK – it was made in criticism of Erdogan’s statement at the funeral of how happy the young man is now to have martyred himself in the fight against terrorism. The image is the latest take on the work we made in 2005 of Tony Blair which we call Photo Op. A journalist for the magazine contacted us on the 18th September to say that the nokta magazine’s offices had been raided, the editor in chief arrested and all copies of the edition confiscated. She also said that the turkish authorities were going around the countries news stands confiscating any copies of this issue. She asked us for a statement and this is what we sent
on the 13th September 2015 nokta magazine published with a cover image of turkish president Erdogan taking a selfie in front of the funeral parade of a turkish soldier killed in combat with the PKK – it was made in criticism of Erdogan’s statement at the funeral of how happy the young man is now to have martyred himself in the fight against terrorism. The image is the latest take on the work we made in 2005 of Tony Blair which we call Photo Op. A journalist for the magazine contacted us on the 18th September to say that the nokta magazine’s offices had been raided, the editor in chief arrested and all copies of the edition confiscated. She also said that the turkish authorities were going around the country’s news stands confiscating any copies of this issue. She asked us for a statement and this is what we sent
when we made photo op in 2005 we were intent on making a set of anti war posters ahead of the G8 summit in scotland. We were against the invasion of iraq by the us and it’s allies, we had demonstrated on the streets of london alongside a million other citizens and millions more worlwide. The invasion went ahead a month later and by 2005 the civic structure of iraq was destroyed and daily life for civilians across iraq devastated.
In the montage of blair we were making clear our opinion of the depth of his reason for invading Iraq, extremely shallow, and heavily criticising his flagrant abuse of power.
There has been ongoing censorship of the image in the corporate sector but the freedom of press laws are strong in the UK and are perhaps the one area of civil liberties that has not been successfully attacked by the terrorism bill laws brought in by blair and his government and continued by cameron and the conservatives.
Freedom of speech and freedom of press is a fundamental off democracies – without it any claim to democracy is just gestural not practical and has no chance of progressing.
It allows nasty violations of human rights to go uncriticesed and unchallenged.
It heads towards dictatorship.
We strongly condemn the authorities in turkey for attacking nokta magazine and questioning their right to criticise government actions – nokta’s work is vital to all turkish people and vital to government and citizen alike. Without freedom of press what is government but an unchallenged, deaf, old power.
Photo Op, kennardphillipps 2005/Mother Courage, National Theatre 2009
Petrol War
Business As Usual
Untitled (Iraq 2005)
eastInternational ’05, War on War Room 2005
In east’05 we were in residence at Norwich Gallery for the duration of the show, 8 weeks, creating the war on war room as an open workspace. We transported all our digital equipment including a large format printer, all our raw materials, source images, books and everything we use in the studio to make work. Any visitor to the space ie the audience could sit down and make images/work either on the computers or using the printed material. During the 7 weeks in residence we produced the STOP posters and printed them daily on recycled newsprint available free to the audience to take away and use.
Gleneagles 2005
Photo Op signed lithograph poster on factory outlet
Know Your Enemy
