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When we talk about identity, we are referring to a complex set of individual, relational, cultural, social, and even political experiences. The five artists selected question these different concepts of identity through photo and video works that often transcend the two-dimensional frame of the image and require the viewer to engage with the artwork on a personal level.

All of these artists, nominated for the Arendt Award, develop a strong personal vision that goes beyond the usual classic clichés of identity.

Cihan Çakmak, with a more idiosyncratic approach, explores the shared memories of a fractured Kurdish identity by creating dreamlike personal situations that challenge social fragmentation and the resulting isolation experienced by the community.

Ulla Deventer’s particular aesthetics which draws both on documentary photography and contemporary art installation considers her body as an instrument of power in order to deconstruct stereotypes about prostitution.

As to Karolina Wojtas, her deconstructed self-representations and fragmentary perceptions of the body establish new narratives that challenge the conventional notions of time and space from a social and relational standpoint.

Different in style, Lívia Melzi , her deconstructed self-representations and fragmentary perceptions of the body establish new narratives that challenge the conventional notions of time and space from a social and relational standpoint.

The question of cultural identity is intertwined with autobiographical elements in the multimedia work of Jojo Gronostay (born in Germany with Ghanaian roots). Objects and images of objects and body fragments are decontextualized and presented on an unusual scale, playing on the interrelationships between colonialism and capitalism.

Generally speaking, the perspectives of all these artists convey a range of different identities, whether they be individual, familial, cultural or territorial.

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