#Resist Laughter by Alana Holmberg
Alana Holmberg’s exhibition #Resist Laughter explores the experiences of women in Turkey today through portraiture and interviews, and embraces complexities and contradictions. The exhibition considers the influence of politics and increasing conservatism on everyday experiences of women – on the street, in families, at home, and in relationships. The collection of 27 images was produced with the assistance of a $10,000 Pool Grant, awarded to Holmberg in 2017, and first shown at the Special Group Studios in Sydney.
Holmberg was inspired to create her collection on the basis of a tweet from 2014.“It was an image of young women laughing in the street, and the Turkish words #direnkahkaha (resist laughter),” she explained. “The post was one of thousands shared by Turkish women to protest comments by the country’s then Deputy Prime Minister who said that women should not laugh in public.”
Travelling to Turkey in 2015 and 2016, Holmberg immersed herself in the lives and loves of Turkish women. She documented their ongoing fight for equality, many spurning the title of feminism as a “white, Western phenomenon”. As a group, the women were unified in their outrage about skyrocketing numbers of murdered women; “an 1400% increase between 2003 and 2010,” Holmberg reports.
Director and co-founder of The Lost Ones Contemporary Art Gallery, Tara Poole, explained that Homberg’s work was exactly the kind of creative work the gallery sought to show. “Alana’s work is not only technically beautiful, it is poignant and powerful,” she said. “We’re honoured to show this exhibition. The #Resist Laughter collection has been internationally recognised at the Organ Vida Festival in Zagreb and Alana has recently been nominated as a William and Winifred Bowness Prize finalist.”
