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Sevgi Safer's "Reconcile"
is an exploration into her identity. As a Turkish Cypriot born in Britain
she is interested in the tensions, difficulties, contradictions, and often
confusing meanings about home, return and self. Like so many other artists
of her generation, her exploration is decisive, moving and honest. Her
work speaks of the plurality of her identity, of the rifts, splits and
"cultural difference" that so many second-generation migrants
in Britain's urban, suburban metropolis face.
In many ways "Reconcile" as a title suggests an integration
and closure of opposing positions - to harmonise, attain and realise an
equilibrium, an order - but "Reconcile" here could also perhaps
and more importantly suggest a recognition and reconciliation of the very
differences that she is exploring.
Safer's work offers a keen insight into the different methodologies available
to the artist - she starts out as an observer in an ethnographic mapping
of culture and memory, and ends placing herself firmly, precisely in the
centre of the "text" itself.
John Nassari, London
2002. |
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