article

Touring the Ordinary: Annette Merrild's The Room

Michael Borowski

Following this proverb Annette Merrild began, in 2001, photographing her neighbor’s living rooms in a Hamburg apartment complex. Over the next four years she expanded her study to include living rooms from cities across Europe. Her series of images show unique details within homogenized apartment spaces. The residents themselves are never photographed. Instead the viewer interprets how others live through the objects and decoration of the space. As a part of a larger archive project, these photographs become associated with scientific documentation. But they equally illustrate the mediums objective limits. The Room attempts to disprove cultural stereotypes with a more intimate view into foreign peoples homes, but this over simplifies the possibilities of their message. more...

interview

Portraits Of İstanbul

An interview with Ali Taptik

Michael Borowski

"My interest in photography started very early. When I was 14, I started taking pictures. I decided to study architecture because there weren’t any photography schools; I mean good photography schools, present at that time. Architecture seemed to be a more interesting choice in its connection to art and theory, and in the end I manipulated my curriculum in a way that I didn’t take many classes in structure or building details but I took critical theory or art history." (...) "In my 2nd year I was invited to a masterclass in Stockholm, a very intensive course. Before then I wasn’t sure about being a professional photographer but with that course I decided that that’s what I wanted. I finished my studies anyway because I liked studying architecture more than being an architect. Interestingly, in Turkey, very good photographers are often architects." more...