İMGEYİ DÖNÜŞTÜRMEK: MÜLTECİLİK, ESTETİK VE EŞİTLİK POLİTİKASI

Öz

Mülteciliği temsil eden imgenin merkezinde, yurtlarını terk etmek zorunda kalmış bedenler yer almaktadır. Ancak mülteci imgelerinin politik anlamı yalnızca görünürlükten hareketle açıklanamaz: görsel temsiller acıyı belgelendirirken mülteciliği trajedi, kurbanlık ve çaresizliğin tanıdık figürleri içinde sabitleyebilir. Bu makale, farklı görsel rejimlerin mülteci, imge ve izleyici arasındaki ilişkiyi nasıl kurduğunu ve bu ilişkinin hangi estetik koşullarda kurbanlığın yeniden üretimi yerine politik özneleşmeye açılabileceğini sorar. Rancière’in estetik, eşitlik ve duyumsanır olanın paylaşımı yaklaşımından hareket eden, Agamben’in çıplak hayat kavramını ise teşhis edici bir başlangıç noktası olarak kullanan çalışma, nitel ve teori yönelimli karşılaştırmalı görsel analiz yöntemini benimsemektedir. Belgesel ve haber fotoğrafları Banksy ve Ai Weiwei’nin yapıtlarıyla üç ölçüt üzerinden birlikte okunmaktadır: mülteci özneye verilen konum, imge ile izleyici arasında kurulan ilişki ve imgenin mülteciliği tarihsel-politik yoruma açma ya da ondan kapatma biçimi. Çalışma, belgesel fotoğrafı özsel olarak depolitize edici, çağdaş sanatı ise kendiliğinden politize edici saymamaktadır. Bunun yerine politik etkinin, görsel düzenlemenin görünürlük, söz, mesafe ve dahil olma ilişkilerini nasıl dağıttığına bağlı olduğunu ileri sürmektedir. Karşılaştırma, eleştirel sanat yapıtlarının izleyicinin konumunu yeniden düzenleyerek kurbanlaştırıcı çerçeveleri sarsabildiğini, ancak kendilerinin de anonimleştirme ve estetize etme riskinden bütünüyle kurtulamadığını göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Depolitizasyon
• Estetik
• Eşitlik
• Mültecilik
• Politika

TRANSFORMING THE IMAGE: REFUGEEHOOD, AESTHETICS AND THE POLITICS OF EQUALITY

Öz

At the centre of the image representing refugeehood are bodies forced to leave their homelands. Yet the political significance of refugee images cannot be inferred from visibility alone: visual representations may document suffering while also fixing refugeehood within recognizable figures of tragedy, victimhood, and helplessness. This article asks how different visual regimes configure the relation between the refugee, the image, and the spectator, and under what aesthetic conditions that relation may become a site of political subjectivation rather than the reproduction of victimhood. Drawing on Rancière’s account of aesthetics, equality, and the distribution of the sensible, and using Agamben’s notion of bare life as a diagnostic point of departure, the study employs a qualitative, theoretically informed comparative visual analysis. Documentary and news photographs are read alongside works by Banksy and Ai Weiwei according to three criteria: the position assigned to the refugee subject, the relation constructed between image and spectator, and the extent to which the image opens refugeehood to or closes it off from historical-political interpretation. The article does not treat documentary photography as inherently depoliticising or contemporary art as inherently politicising. Rather, it argues that political effects depend on how a visual arrangement distributes visibility, speech, distance, and implication. The comparison shows that critical artworks can unsettle victimising frames by reorganising the spectator’s position, while remaining vulnerable to anonymisation and aestheticisation themselves.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Aesthetics
• Depoliticisation
• Equality
• Politics
• Refugeehood

Kaynakça

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