Artist talks on photography, consent and representation
Lectures, panels and workshops: hi@sametdurgun.com
I am Samet Durgun, a photographer and visual artist based in Berlin. I welcome invitations from museums, galleries, festivals and universities for artist talks, conversations, panels and workshops on photography, consent and representation. Talks can be in English, German or Turkish, in person or online.
I speak about the work and the questions under it: photography as more about listening than seeing; what consent means in portraiture when the people photographed are queer, trans and gender-nonconforming refugees and asylum seekers; how fifty people became fifteen in the pictures; and why a photobook came to carry a voice recording and a video.
Past formats include an artist talk in conversation with the book's publisher, an opening-night conversation at Fotografiska Berlin, a reverse portfolio walk at the Deutsche Fotografische Akademie, and a conference stage at IFA Berlin.
Subjects
- Photography as listening, not seeing: the question under all of the work, with the full talk on video
- Listening in practice: how I work with the people in the pictures: meeting first, saying what I am doing, who chooses, and what stays unpublished
- Consent and portraiture: photographing queer, trans and gender-nonconforming refugees and asylum seekers, and what it asks of the photographer
- How fifty people became fifteen in the pictures: editing a book from years of relationships
- Why a photobook carries audio and video: what a photograph cannot hold, and what the book does about it
- Where the work sits: eleven field guides to the photographers and artists working near the same questions
Past talks
- 2026 Samet Durgun | IFA Berlin 2026, speaker, 4–8 September 2026
- 2025 Artist talk at the opening of Come Get Your Honey, Fotografiska Berlin, with Kylie Divon, moderated by the curator Marie-Luise Mayer
- 2021 Photobook Fair 2021: Come Get Your Honey, Impressions Gallery, Bradford, in conversation with Alexa Becker of Kehrer Verlag; video
- 2021 Photo Book Talk: Klaus Kehrer im Gespräch mit Samet Durgun, Sibylle Fendt und Anton Roland Laub, Kehrer Verlag at Galerie p98a, Potsdamer Straße, Berlin, 16 September 2021, during Wir machen Bücher
- — Reverse Portfolio Walk | Samet Durgun x Karina-Sirkku Kurz, Deutsche Fotografische Akademie; video
Watch one in full
The Photobook Fair talk with Alexa Becker of Kehrer Verlag is on this site with a full transcript: Photography as Listening.
Enquiries
Write with the occasion, the audience, the date and the format you have in mind, and whether it is a talk, a conversation or a workshop.
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