In the Shadow of Memories

October 2023 - August 2024
ARTVİN, ARDAHAN

“In the Shadow of Memories” documentary project is a work on the folk memory of the people of Hemşin. The film provides recommendations on how the state of assimilation of the Hemşin society can be communicated via the tunes and memories within the society’s folk memory. Furthermore, it aims to present the society’s past life rituals with a cinematic aesthetic. Within such context, viewers witness an obvious loss of memory. How longer can Hemşin language and culture, as a whole, survive such assimilation/forgetting/memory loss? The effort to stimulate questions regarding such problem is the main objective of the film. On the other hand, an old woman being the main character of the film highlights that folk memory transfer is made possible through women. After having the elderly listen to anonymous Hemşin tunes, the film embarks on a quest on finding out what such tunes remind the elderly of, how we could analyze the past based on tunes and what would it mean for us. As such, the film quests after the folk memory of the Hemşin society, both in the past and today, while creating a panorama of the past using the memories of the old generation.

Emek Yıldırım Şahin

He was born in Ankara. He completed his middle education in Ankara, graduating from Mehmet Emin Resulzade Anatolian High School. He received his undergraduate degree in 2004 from the Middle East Technical University (METU) Department of Philosophy, his minor in 2004 from the METU Department of History and his graduate degree in 2007 from the METU Department of Political Science and Public Administration. He received his PhD in 2018 from the Ankara University Department of Political Science and Public Administration. From 2008 to 2010, he received a Russian State Scholarship to conduct research at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (РУДН/RUDN). Since 2012, he has been working at the Artvin Çoruh University Hopa School of Economics and Administrative Sciences Department of Political Science and Public Administration. He speaks advanced level of English, intermediate level of Russian and beginner level of German. He works in the areas of political sociology, gender and cinema.

This page is published on 8 December 2023.