Collection: Pâme 05 : Ekim Acun

Our fifth collaboration excavates the iconic 1970s Turkish Erotic Cinema with Istanbul based visual and video artist Ekim Acun. Ekim’s first solo exhibition examines this period’s cultural ramifications from his campy yet critical perspective. 

After studying Film and Television at the UAL London College of Communication, Ekim started his artistic practice and took part in various group exhibitions in both London and Istanbul. His works focuses on references from Turkish media history since the 1950s and is inspired by the kitsch aesthetic of Turkey’s campy pop culture.

In 2018, Ekim founded Şokopop, an online video series which analyses Turkish pop culture history from a comic yet critical lense. With these highly researched documentaries, where the artist narrates anonymously, Ekim aims to highlight issues of memory, gender and identity politics in Turkish culture. His colourful edits signs these creative documentaries with his unique artistic touch. 

For our collaboration with Ekim we have created a series of five collages with stills taken from selected movies from Turkisj Erotic Cinema of 1970s. This short lived period of Turkish cinematic history has marked a decade that was abruptly stopped with the coup d’état of 1980. Although considerably impactful, this erotic film rush has become somewhat a "collective secret” that is now remembered by most with shame or mockery. Our collaboration with Ekim aims to reveal this secret back to its intended audience.