Junger Ankauf
Cemile Sahin - ROAD RUNNER
2025
Cemile Sahin was born in Wiesbaden in 1990 and lives and works in Berlin. In her work, she uses images and tells stories that she re-enacts using film, photography, sculpture, literature, and collage. Cemile Sahin studied fine art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London until 2011. In 2018, she completed her master’s degree at the Berlin University of the Arts. A year later, her debut novel TAXI was published, for which she received the Alfred Döblin Medal and the 2020 Ars Viva Prize for Fine Arts. This was followed in 2020 by the book ALLE HUNDE STERBEN (All Dogs Die). In 2024, her third novel, KOMMANDO AJAX, was published, for which she was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2025 in the fiction category. Sahin’s artworks are in the collections of the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, the Kunsthaus Zürich, Julia Stoschek, Berlin/Düsseldorf, the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin, the Servais Family Collection, Brussels, and the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany.
ROAD RUNNER, 2025, video, 15:15 min.
In her video work ROAD RUNNER, Cemile Sahin visualizes the story of the Kurdish girl Bêrîtan, who wants to free her sister from digital captivity. To do so, she must face threats not only in the film world, but also in virtual reality. Reality and digital space merge – where does one end and the other begin? Using the visual language and aesthetics of contemporary pop culture, social media platforms, and video games, Cemile Sahin sketches a dystopian scenario. In a brutal world marked by armed violence and constant surveillance by drones, the protagonist tries to assert herself against an invisible authority. Sahin stages this scenario at a rapid pace using various narrative strategies and plot levels, speed, flashy designs, and volume. Using the first-person perspective and storytelling elements from film and advertising, animation in cartoons and computer games, the action seems immediate and thrilling.
ROAD RUNNER was made possible with the support of the CIRCA PRIZE, which was awarded to Cemile Sahin in 2023.