This year the Chargesheimer Award for Media Arts goes to Şirin Şimşek. The award ceremony and the opening of the exhibition will take place on 6th December, 2017 at 8 pm in the artothek.

Following greeting and award ceremony by Susanne Laugwitz-Aulbach, Head of the Municipal Culture Departement, and laudation by Damian Zimmermann, photographer and member of the jury, the exhibition will be declared open to the public.

Şirin Şimşek uses photography, film and video for her artistic works, which deal with situations from everyday life. Because of the artist’s special point of view however these common situations create irritation and raise questions the viewer needs to answer on his own.

The central work of the exhibition is the film “HÜZÜN” - “Hüzün” can be translated with “melancholy”. - The film is situated in Side, a town at the Turkish Riviera known as a touristy spot. Due to the present political situation tourism has almost stopped and the quiet of the off-season intensifies the depressed atmosphere.

Born 1983 in Köln, Germany. Sirin Simsek studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne since 2013. She had a residency in Island and beside her own artistic work she managed the project space AGNES MAYBACH in Cologne together with the artist Melike Kara.