Halil Altındere scrutinises the politics of the everyday in his videos, photographs, installations and paintings. A keen observer of sociopolitical mechanisms and their encroachment on the individual, he often uses the very means by which authority is asserted and difference is circumscribed by the institutions of the nation-state. Identity cards, postage stamps, banknotes, newspaper front pages, militaristic slogans and photos of political leaders are appropriated to subvert social or political manipulation and normalisation.
Coming from a Kurdish background, and having grown up during the peak of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, Altındere touches on the neglect and mistreatment of minorities in numerous works. In recent years, Altındere has engaged with the global refugee crisis in multiple works, including Space Refugee (2016), a series inspired by the artist’s meeting with Muhammed Ahmed Faris, Syria’s first and only cosmonaut, who travelled to space with a Soviet team in 1987.
