oa Migratory Birds

In 1962, the year the Federal Republic of Germany and Turkey signed an Anwerbeabkommen [recruitment treaty] to regulate the subsequent westward flow of migrant labour, Gani Bilir began work at the Triebwerkfabrik Maschinenbau Kiel (MAK). In 2020, long after the death of my grandfather, Gani Bilir, I came across his pay slips in a box at the home of my grandmother, Vehbiye Bilir, in Mersin. They span the period from December 1976 to February 1983. The more than one hundred pay slips are fragmented testimony to over twenty-five years as a migrant worker in Germany. Among these documents from my grandfather's working life were two paintings of migratory birds, which he had made on transparent foils.

Keywords: Art ; artistic research ; audibility ; classism ; film ; forms of representation ; guestworkers ; Migration ; racism ; Temporary workers ; visibility ; visual arts