Sıtkı was born in 1955 in Izmir. Lives and works in Istanbul.
Sıtkı Kösemen, on the 100th Anniversary of the First World War, photographs the cemetery designed by Georg Kolbe
in the memory of German soldiers who have lost their lives in the Ottoman fronts during the war, located in the
premises of the historical summer residence of the German Consulate General in Tarabya. The artist, by pointing at
the fate of soldiers who have died young and buried near the shore of the Bosphorus -one of the special natural
beauties of the world- reminds us the meaninglessness of the war. This unknown cemetery that has silently
witnessed the German-Ottoman political and military collaboration of that period, at the same time de-familiarizes
the memorized perception built around the saying “As Germany was considered to be defeated, so were we.” The
artist through his lens throws a glance at this specific period, where Germany was driven with the ambition of
becoming a power in the Near East in terms of economic and political aspects, and the Ottoman Empire has found
itself in the middle of a struggle of survival.
