· Cemre Yeşil’s exhibition Double Portrait for Millî Reasürans Art Gallery can be visited between March 17 – May 29, 2021.

· The catalogue essay of Cemre Yeşil’s exhibition at Millî Reasürans Art Gallery was written by Ahu Antmen. Besides the catalogue, a hybrid photo-text book titled “Double Portait” was published by FiLBooks. Visitors of the exhibition will have the publications in the exhibition space.

Cemre Yeşil’s new work Double Portrait is a reverie in the form of images and words. A communication of her artistic calling through photography and an archive of her personal journey of fear of loss; the joy of love and birth; and a questioning of the psychological aspect of photography. The exhibition invites the viewer to remember what it means to be held, and experiencing what it means to hold regardless of cultural norms related to gender. Double Portrait records 9 years of research into a real-time system of observation on the mother-child relationship through different lenses.

Ahu Antmen remarks about the exhibition: “Double Portrait is full of the visual variants that raise questions related to our selves and identities through our own personal archives. Who are we? When do we become who we are? How were we held? And can photographs really tell us?

In a culture where images of the mother-child relationship are cliched conspicuously in and outside of the realms of art, popular culture and everyday life, these intimate shots in which Cemre Yeşil re-addresses the cultural, reach a more raw and natural state of expression.

This exhibition is a cartography towards the unfolding process of motherhood. A visual response to the unimaginable death of everyone’s mother.

Double Portrait speaks of something we all know about emotionally, but can’t articulate all that easily. We know it when we see it. We know it when we feel it. We know it when it is absent. We carry it when we have been held and we carry it when we have not been held.

Cemre Yeşil is a Turkish photographer and artist living in Istanbul. Her BA in photography is from Istanbul Bilgi University and she holds an MA in Visual Arts from Sabancı University. In 2017, she dropped out her practice-based PhD in London College of Communication. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally including The Guardian, International Centre of Photography New York, British Journal of Photography, Colors Magazine, La Fabrica, 6 mois, Istanbul Modern Museum, and Salt Beyoğlu. Her 2020 book Hayal & Hakikat was shortlisted in Paris Photo Aperture Photobook Awards for the Photobook of the Year Category. She currently lectures on photography in Falmouth University MA Photography and Istanbul Bilgi University BA Visual Communication Design. She also works as a writer, curator and publisher. Cemre Yeşil is also the founder of FiLBooks; a space dedicated to photo books, artist talks and workshops which in 2017 became a publishing house in Karaköy, Istanbul.

Cemre Yeşil’s Double Portrait can be visited at Millî Reasürans Art Gallery between March 17 – May 29, 2021.