Sirin Bahar Demirel

She has done this by visually mixing their most ordinary moments with her own. Demirel was never interested in outer space or the journey of humankind to the moon until she left her home country and moved to the U.S. Since then she has become absorbed in the subject, and has realized that what fascinates her is not the scientific, but the ordinary activities of astronauts – singing, making jokes, etc. From this point of view, they’re no longer robot-like scientists, but ordinary human beings. She writes “I think that I also unconsciously started to ‘look for life’ in the footages of astronauts on the moon because in a deeper level, I feel as if I can relate to them being extremely far away from ‘the only home they’ve ever known.'”

About the Artist

Sirin Bahar Demirel was born in 1985, in Istanbul, Turkey. Demirel studied cinema in Istanbul and then finished her MA in Artistic Direction of Cultural Projects at Université Paul Valéry, France. She is a practicing visual artist working in the mediums of photography, video and film. Her photographic work has been included in numerous group exhibitions internationally, including Finland, France, Germany, and Turkey. Her short documentaries have been touring festivals and have received several awards.