My story

In my work I use multiple media to express ideas, including photography, performance, video and photo book. In my work I show how our past is being nullified, changed or manipulated. Mentioned media are the solution for me to live up to these artistic principles. As an artist, I therefore empty our transient world as evidence for others who could not be witnesses to this process.

The person or objects portrayed in space are representation of artistic and conceptual view that is related to the concept of identity. Foundations for exploring the conceptual starting point that involve the concept of identity such as national, corporate and sexual identity come from different personal situations. Exploration of national identity has to do with being born in former Yugoslavia, the country that no longer exists. In Yugoslavia we maintained national identity for decades with existing symbols, songs, ideals and heroes. A hundred years of history were destroyed in one day after the fall of failed political system. As a former dancer, job that I can’t practice any longer, I like to examine corporate identity. What people do in daily life’s I use as an starting point to create a project. Last but not least is sexual identity, the gender. I crawl into the role of both sexes so that the roles of a man and a woman are no longer distinguished. That raises a certain confusion, because the presentation of gender is not limited to accepted norms of our society.

Goran Turnšek (1978) was born in Ptuj (Slovenia, former Yugoslavia). He studied modern dance at Academy of Theater and Dance in Amsterdam and photography at the Fotocademie Amsterdam, Communication and Design Management at Inholland Rotterdam. As a dancer he danced in celebrated choreographies of Krisztina de Châtel, Marina Abramović, Nicole Beutler, Piet Rogie, Paul Selwyn Norton, Bruno Listopad and Uri Ivgi. After the dance career he developed an interest in the relationship between performance and photography. In 2015 he graduated with the photo project ‘Jakob’ which was supervised by Nicole Segers and Ellen Sanders. His work has been published in the British Journal of Photography, Volkskrant magazine, Fotodigi and Photocaptionist, among others.