MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

Alptekin created this work after a lengthy set of residencies he undertook across four cities in four countries – Dunaújváros (Hungary), Leipzig (Germany), Graz (Austria) and Ústí nad Labem (Czech Republic). Each jacket was the one he was wearing in each of the four cities, and with each he made an association with a different found image. It was a typical feeling of displacement that comes with such travel that led to the work, particularly with the strong memories of a recent trip to Bombay/Mumbai in this instance, where he had made the video work Incident-S Bombay. Alptekin was also reading William Gibson’s novel Pattern Recognition (2003) at that time, which also offered a reflection on the displacement of the soul through travel: “Souls can’t move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage”.