Those subjects are people whose stories, obsessions, sensibilities or sense of self appear to set them apart from 'normal' society. Ataman, though, rejects any opposition between the centre and the margins of society. For him, there are 'as many centres as there are individuals'.These are gentle, even caring works. The artist sees facets of himself in all his subjects (and only chooses subjects he can recognise or identify with) and attempts to speak to us through them, but he does not compromise or exploit them in order to do so. He treats them as heroes and heroines of their own narratives: centres of their own, created worlds.

Ataman's subjects speak, act out, and so 'construct' their own life-story to a close-up, hand-held camera. They are often filmed in domestic settings — presumably in their own homes — and we sense an intimacy, even complicity, between artist and subject. The subjects seem to be both author and director of their own portraits or documentaries.

The works involve long projections or multi-screen pieces (each screen simultaneously playing a different voice or section of the narrative) which we encounter and leave at different points in the narrative — as we encounter people in our daily lives. Although at first his technique may seem to have similarities with the 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary, unlike a documentary film-maker, Ataman sees his role as revealing how the mechanics of the narratives work — and so how we construct our own realities.

Kutlug Ataman has been nominated for the works featured here and for other works that have appeared in the Istanbul Eighth Biennale and in various European exhibitions including 'Long Streams' at the Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen (2002) and at the Serpentine Gallery, London (2003).