Their names upon Gallipoli
This month, Kurt’s works will be on display at Clifton School of Arts in a show titled Their Names Upon Gallipoli / Üzerine kendi Isimler Gelibolu
By Gabriel Clark
At approximately 4.30am on 25 April 1915, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps troops invaded modern-day Turkey by landing on a small spit and cove on the Gallipoli peninsula. What followed was a bloody, sorrowful and ultimately purposeless conflict that would indelibly affect these nations forever.
In 2014, artist and Stanwell Park local Kurt Sorensen travelled to Gallipoli to photograph and film the battle sites as they appear today as part of an exhibition commissioned by the Sydney Olympic Park Authority to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the landings.
This month, Kurt’s works will be on display at Clifton School of Arts in a show titled Their Names Upon Gallipoli / Üzerine kendi Isimler Gelibolu.
Although hundreds of thousands of other people from various nations were involved in the broader Gallipoli campaign, Kurt’s exhibition focuses on the Anzac and Turkish perspectives.
Significant sites for both the Anzac and Turkish forces are represented.
The video installations depict the scarred landscape that, more than 100 years ago, was the scene of bitter, bloody fighting.
The film is accompanied by the voices of direct descendants of Anzac and Turkish personnel reading their relatives’ letters and recalling events written and seen on the frontlines at Gallipoli.
“Ben saldırmak için size sipariş değilim; Ölmenizi emrediyorum / I am not ordering you to attack; I am ordering you to die.” – Lieutenant Mustafa Kemal, 25 April 1915
The stories recalled have been orally handed down to the soldiers’ grandchildren and were recorded just a few kilometres from the Gallipoli battlefields in the frontline villages of Kocadere and Bigali in September 2014.
This exhibition aims to be a sombre engagement with these terrible events and hopes to explore some of the horrors that both sides of the conflict had to endure.
Solemn reminders that, in total, 8159 Australian, 2779 New Zealand and 85,000 Turkish personnel died, and many thousands more were wounded during this devastating campaign.
Kurt Sorensen's exhibition Their Names Upon Gallipoli / Üzerine kendi İsimler Gelibolu runs from 22 April until 10 May at the Clifton School of Arts, 338 Lawrence Hargrave Drive.
Opening drinks: 2-4pm, April 22.
Visit artsclifton.org & www.kurtsorensen.com
