DÖNÜS – The Return of Kent Sinema

Views from the Society of the Many

Ute Langkafel

The exhibition DÖNÜŞ (‘Return’) starts with fifty original Turkish film posters from 1961 to 2011. For one year, Ute Langkafel, photographic artist and producer at MAIFOTO, invited visitors to her gallery to take a place in a film poster of their choice and to reinterpret it. In fifty such photo shootings, she created remakes of the poster motifs with new leading actors casting themselves as film icons. The subjects and the photographer jointly developed sequels of the films. Particularly in view of the strong tendencies towards gentrification, which are crowding out the long-established migrant population, DÖNÜŞ makes the individual and collective story of migration visible. The exhibition is a declaration against the discourse in Germany, where majorities are not yet able to integrate themselves in the transnational and intercultural social structures of the twenty-first century. Rather than constructing a ‘view of the other’, DÖNÜŞ presents views from the society of the many.