Müge Yıldız - i was a ghost myself.
12 ApRIL-18 MAY 2025
Opening 12 April at 18:00
Müge Yıldız is an artist-filmmaker and doctoral researcher at Aalto University. She has a BA in Cinema from Galatasaray University, further expanded her cinema education as an Erasmus exchange student at Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, and completed her MA in Visual Cultures, Curating, and Contemporary Art at Aalto University on a Finland Scholarship. Her work blends experimental filmmaking with hybrid techniques while emphasizing sustainable practices. Her work has been showcased at major international film festivals, including the BFI London Film Festival and Images Festival in Toronto. She also participated in the Oberhausen Film Seminar and Istanbul Biennial Production and Research Program.
I Was a Ghost Myself presents a layered exploration of spectrality, materiality, and psychogeographic narratives through three interconnected forms: the moving image, the materiality of film, and the film as a book. Together, these elements create a poetic and tactile dialogue that transcends the boundaries of presence and absence, human and nonhuman, material and immaterial.
The moving image serves as the heart of the exhibition, with the titular film shot on expired Super 8mm film stocks. This choice imbues the work with a haunting, textural quality, emphasizing the fragility of memory and the passage of time. The film’s narrative captures fleeting encounters with ghostly presences across urban and natural landscapes, drawing attention to the interplay between the seen and unseen.
Accompanying the film is a series of crafted film materials that delve into the materiality of cinema. These include the original film matter—scratched and distressed film titles, handmade lens filters used in the filmmaking process. Together, they form an object-film sculpture, transforming the ephemeral nature of moving images into tangible, enduring artifacts. This work celebrates the sustainability and intimacy of DIY filmmaking, offering viewers a closer look at the textures and processes that bring the film to life.
Presenting her solo show, I was a Ghost Myself, at Fringe Gallery, artist-filmmaker Müge Yıldız talks about the works in the exhibition, her artistic practice in general and what analogue film means to her. Through this interview we get a beautiful insight in Müges interests and ways of working that form the base of her works, that are on display at Fringe Gallery 12.4-18.5.2025.
