Born in 1986 in Istanbul, Rehan Miskci is a New York based visual artist working mainly in photography and video. She studied Interior Architecture at Istanbul Technical University and holds an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts, New York.
Her photographic series “ Void” that explores her Armenian roots as a minority and depicts her struggle with this issue by visualizing notions of the displacement and the loss of identity, was selected as the first place winner at Baxter Street Camera Club of New York’s Annual Competition in 2015 and was also exhibited in Lift Off at Fridman Gallery, curated by Elisabeth Biondi. She participated in international exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Munich, Reading and Istanbul. Her personal and commissioned work was published in magazines such as Vogue Turkey, Fotomagazin Der Greif, Musée Magazine, The Artist Catalogue, Steadfast Magazine and Bant Magazine.
Void
As a member of the Armenian minority growing up in Turkey, Rehan Miskci’s work is a poetic examination of displacement, absence and invisibility. These keywords simply define her identity experience while growing up in a latent and secluded culture. Mainly, her series derive from archives, and can be seen as one of the many possible interpretations of these archives. The interest lies in how they are being treated physically and how they are recontextualized through the juxtaposition of personal and collective memory. Analyzing the physicality of photographs as well as their semantic weight play key roles in her practice.
The series “Void” explores the struggle with this issue by visualizing notions of the displacement, the loss of identity and the absence or disappearance of the culture through images that emphasize these notions through the evocation and depiction of studio space. The main inspiration for this project is the archive of Maryam Sahinyan, an Armenian studio photographer, a woman who worked for almost 50 years (1937 – 1985) in the heart of Istanbul. Her studio space became like a recorder of personal memories, as well as of social and political events that led to corruption in the culture and threatened the existence of the minorities in Turkey. The artist’s intervention to Sahinyan’s original images is an act of unveiling social and cultural conditions that the Armenian identity went through.
To view more of Rehan’s work please visit her Website