As I said two posts before, after finishing the project with my mother, I felt a bit lost. I tried out different ideas, met various people, until I began working with an older man I found interesting.
I wanted to document his life and environment, he lived in a large house in Budapest, and we had many long conversations. But at some point, the atmosphere shifted when he spoke about his ex-partners. He described how they would take on domestic tasks during their travels and framed this as something “biological” in women.
That moment stayed with me. It made me think of the women in my own family, who carried so much invisible labor without recognition. I felt a lot of anger, and eventually decided to stop working on the project.
Instead, I turned towards that feeling and tried to give it space. I started making self-portraits, placing myself in male dominated environments while performing stereotypically “female” domestic tasks.
It pushed me far out of my comfort zone, but it also felt necessary. Like giving my anger a place to exist.
And I think that’s maybe where I want to end this takeover: allowing emotions to guide the work, even when they’re uncomfortable, and trusting that they always lead somewhere honest. 🫂
much love, @aslicxt
Movies were one of the first ways I found to make sense of things. I’ve always found speaking difficult, often not quite having the words for what I wanted to express. Through images, I realized I didn’t have to translate everything into language, I could express myself visually instead.
I still draw a lot of inspiration from movies. And sometimes, when the world feels a little absurd, when it seems like the same people keep being given access and power (also in the art world), there are movies that give me hope and remind me why I started photographing in the first place.
I want to leave you with some of my favorite movies that give me courage, or simply make me feel something. Watch them, its worth it<3
The second work that I’d like to show you is a photobook that lovingly traces my mother’s life story, which was part of the group exhibition “Photographs and Feelings” by Photoszene last year.
She, like my grandparents and my father, came to Germany as a guest worker at the age of 20 from a small village in northeastern Turkey.
The project began during the pandemic, when my mother lived with me for a month in my one-room apartment. It was an important but overwhelming time, and I started photographing her as a way to cope.
I tried to get to know her as a woman before I existed, as a young girl, as someone with her own life. At the same time, I was going through my own process of understanding my identity and revisiting things I had long suppressed about my background.
While researching migration histories, I noticed how dominant male perspectives are, and how rarely women’s stories are told. It made me feel that my mother’s story was, in many ways, invisible. Because so much of her labor has always been invisible, I felt a strong responsibility to make her story visible through my work.
That responsibility also brought pressure. At times, it made the process heavier, more serious, but it also pushed me to grow. I photographed her in Germany, in her village in Turkey, and in Istanbul. Looking back, the most meaningful part was the time we gave each other through this project. We grew even closer, and I don’t know if we would have taken that time otherwise.
It was important to me to tell her story in the form of a book, carefully designed, with her own voice included. It was also the first work I felt truly confident in. For the first time, it felt honest enough that it almost didn’t matter what others thought.
Finishing the project was very emotional. I had put so much of myself into it that, once it was done, I felt quite empty and had to reorient myself. I think that’s something we don’t talk about enough how finishing a project can be tough sometimes too. 🌺
Hellooo :) starting this takeover with a work in progress.
I’m currently knitting images based on pictures from my family albums, focusing on gestures of vulnerability, connection, and influence. The project grew out of a desire to free myself from expectations tied to my photography and instead follow curiosity and instinct.
So far I’ve knitted six pieces, and I can feel something forming. I keep returning to questions of inheritance—how much of what we feel and how we behave is actually ours, and how much we carry from previous generations. Trying to understand identity through that feels both confusing and important.
The work is titled “Deine Hände waren für mich die grauenvollsten Tiere“, a quote that immediately made me think of my father’s and grandfather’s hands—strong, shaped by labor, often smelling of metal. They weren’t horrifying to me, but I understood early on that they carried exhaustion and something that had been inscribed into the body. At the same time, I felt this urge to distance myself from it—while realizing that this effort is a contradiction in itself.
The images are hand-knitted to hold onto that connection—labor, slowness, and the movement from my father’s hands to my own. For the first presentation, I built a metal structure, bringing back that association with metal and creating a contrast between warmth and coldness.
I still don’t know where the work is going, but I want to stay with this openness—and maybe allow myself (and all of us) to not always know what we’re doing, and to make things simply because they feel right.
#Takeover
Meet @aslicxt ✨
Aslı Özçelik ist eine in Köln lebende Künstlerin, die Fotografie, Video, Sound, Textil und Installation nutzt, um intime Momente einzufangen und marginalisierte Stimmen zu stärken. Ihre Arbeiten sind autobiografisch geprägt und reflektieren ihre Erfahrungen und Sozialisation als Frau. Sie hat zwei Fotobücher im Eigensinn Verlag veröffentlicht und unter anderem im Kunstmuseum Ahlen, im Kunstmuseum Celle und im Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum ausgestellt. 2024 schloss sie ihr Bachelorstudium der Fotografie an der Folkwang Universität der Künste ab und begann dort ihr Masterstudium. Aslı wird derzeit in ihrer künstlerischen Laufbahn von der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes gefördert.
Bis Sonntag übernimmt Aslı den Instagram-Kanal von Photoszene, um sich und einige ihrer Arbeiten vorzustellen. Viel Spaß!
📸 @lilliweinstein
#internationalephotoszeneköln #wedoarephotography #photoszeneköln #fotografieköln #photoszenestudiovisits #photographerscologne
🎬 Studio Visit! ✨
Wir haben @aslicxt in ihrem Wohnzimmer besucht und mit ihr über ihre künstlerische Praxis, vergangene und aktuelle Arbeiten gesprochen. 🌞
Aslı Özçelik ist eine in Köln lebende Künstlerin, die Fotografie, Video, Sound, Textil und Installation nutzt, um intime Momente einzufangen und marginalisierte Stimmen zu stärken. Ihre Arbeiten sind autobiografisch geprägt und reflektieren ihre Erfahrungen und Sozialisation als Frau. Sie hat zwei Fotobücher im Eigensinn Verlag veröffentlicht und unter anderem im Kunstmuseum Ahlen, im Kunstmuseum Celle und im Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum ausgestellt. 2024 schloss sie ihr Bachelorstudium der Fotografie an der Folkwang Universität der Künste ab und begann dort ihr Masterstudium. Aslı wird derzeit in ihrer künstlerischen Laufbahn von der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes gefördert.
Von Freitag bis Sonntag wird Aslı unseren Instagram Kanal übernehmen und noch mehr Einblicke in ihre Arbeit teilen. Wir freuen uns!
👉 Mehr über unseren Besuch bei Aslı erfahrt ihr auf unserer Website – Link in der Bio.
🎤 @kuekelhahn
📹 @lilliweinstein
#internationalephotoszeneköln #wedoarephotography #photoszeneköln #fotografieköln #photoszenestudiovisits
@abkstuttgart@klassemyrzik thank you for inviting me to give one of the workshops for the start of this semester 🌺
i had very lovely past three days and so much fun with the students! thank you so much for welcoming me, for all the lovely words. it’s so cool to see how much is possible in such a short period of time :)
danke vorallem an die studis, ihr seid so cool! <3
🪑Take A Seat🪑
Räume für Fotografie - analoge und digitale Medien
📆Samstag, den 18. April 2026
🕢18:00 – 19:30 Uhr (Einlass ab 17:30)
📍eye got space, Herwarthstraße 3, 50672 Köln
Eintritt frei
Take A Seat findet wieder statt! Diesmal laden wir euch ein, zusammen mit Aslı Özçelik und Josh Kern (@eigensinnpublishing ) und einem Überraschungsgast am Tisch Platz zu nehmen.
Was passiert auf dem Weg des Self-publishing?
Wie können analoge und digitale Medien Fotograf:innen als Arbeitsraum unterstützen, ohne dass sie Zeit überbeanspruchen?
Welche Geschichten über Zusammenarbeit können weitergegeben werden?
Welche Rolle spielt das Timing bei der Veröffentlichung von Fotografien?
Aslı Özçelik (sie/ihr) ist Künstlerin in Köln. Sie arbeitet mit Foto, Video & Textil und thematisiert intime, marginalisierte Perspektiven. @aslicxt
Josh Kern (er/ihn) ist Amateurfotograf und lebt in Köln. In seiner Freizeit arbeitet er an Fotoprojekten, die sich mit seinem persönlichen Umfeld beschäftigen. @_kjosh
Fotograf:innen, Kurator:innen, Kulturschaffende und alle, die sich mit diesem Thema auseinandersetzen (möchten), sind herzlich eingeladen. Im Anschluss lädt das Team von eye got space zu einem Ausklang an ihrer Bar ein.
Moderation: G. Kühnhardt Alvarez (they/deren)
Während der Veranstaltung werden Foto- und Videoaufnahmen für die Öffentlichkeitsarbeit gemacht.
