Andrew
Yip
Framing the Enemy: Turkish paintings of Gallipoli as
cross-cultural exchange
Since 1915 Australian and Turkish cultural relations
have been underscored by the events of the Gallipoli campaign, in which
the two nations met for the first time on the world stage as enemies.
For both nations, the imaging of the other has been an integral component
of the definition of self identity. However, little critical attention
has been paid to artistic visualisations of the Gallipoli campaign and
the role of visual culture in composing these national mythologies.
In particular, in Australian historical studies, no attempt has been
made to study the mobilisation of Gallipoli in Turkish visual culture
as a symbol of cross-cultural communication.
This paper examines Turkish paintings of Gallipoli and
how the campaign is used in visual culture as a tool for cross-cultural
exchange. In modern Turkish historical discourse, Gallipoli is symbolically
seen as the proving ground of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern
Turkey, and a
prolepsis for the establishment of the new republic. However this view
reductively ignores the myriad complex social and political forces at
play within the late Ottoman state that was forced to balance the need
to modernise against the need to preserve cultural autonomy.
With a particular focus on an exhibition of Turkish paintings
shown in Vienna
in 1918, this paper illustrates how Gallipoli was initially mobilised
in the Ottoman era as a tactic to speak back against western imperialist
clichés that were the staple of the Orientalist discourse. It argues
for a more nuanced reconsideration of the emergence of a modern Turkish
identity in the late Ottoman era and aims to show how Gallipoli was
mythologised by Turkish Modernists as a site at which the Turks were
able to both compete with modern Western cultures, yet simultaneously
maintain a sense of spiritual sovereignty.
Andrew Yip - Biography
Andrew Yip completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at the
University
of Sydney, graduating
with first class honours in Art History and Theory in 2004. His PhD
thesis, entitled A Portrait of
a Nation as a Young Man: Australian and Turkish Images of Gallipoli,
currently being completed at the department of Art History and Theory,
University
of Sydney, will
be the first cross-cultural comparison of the visual culture of the
Gallipoli campaign and its influence on Australian and Turkish cultural
mythologies. In 2006, Andrew was a recipient of the inaugural Australian
Government Endeavour Award (Turkey) and spent a year in Istanbul
researching Turkish soldier artists, studying at Boğaziçi University.
In 2007 he assisted with the organisation of Immigrants as Citizens, a conference focusing on issues of Turkish
culture and migration. In 2007 he also curated an exhibition of Australian-Turkish
artists entitled Anatolian Dreams.
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