Murat Germen, 1965

Born in 1965 in Ankara, Murat Germen attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a Fulbright scholar, earning a master’s degree in architecture along with the Henry Adams Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. In addition to his own work in the field of photography, the artist also teaches photography and new media at Sabancı University.

Germen uses photography as a tool for expression and research and combines his expertise in architecture and urban planning with multimedia, art, and computer-aided design. By presenting from a previously unviewed angle a phenomenon that we know or think we know, he disrupts the familiar and offers alternatives to prejudices. The artist regards photography as an opportunity to bring to the fore ordinary things that somehow go unseen or tend to be ignored. He tries to bring out “the extraordinariness that may be latent in the normal”.

In his “Abysmal” series, Germen deconstructs the documentary photographs that he has focused on since 2013 with manual interventions so as to transform them into three-dimensional objects. “Abysmal – Nonplace,” is made of the remnants from the production of the “Abysmal” series. Referencing the radical transformation of the built environment caused by urban renewal, the work scrutinizes the identity of the buildings that emerge as a result.