Özlem Altın collages and cuts up images from the net and her own photo albums. Nothing is sacred. Yet nothing is random. The images Altın chooses relay a particular power. They touch something exceptionally deep inside, even, or especially, when they look like they just fluttered in through an open browser window. In this way they are like omens. That they are meaningful is physically tangible. What they may mean can only be intuited, at best. Altın doesn’t solve the riddle. She directs the gaze towards constellations of images like an augur pointing to shapes formed by flocks of birds: Look! Do you see? Altın has an eye for the grotesque. An absurd humor shines through in her take on the omen— accompanied by an intuition for the things that animate life.

In her laconic manner Altın escapes the false bonds of religion. Her images don’t want to be holy icons, and don’t need to be. They owe no proof of their powers. They’re far too boldly composed. Why would birds give a damn about their interpreters’ beliefs? Birds feel the weather and know when change arrives.

—Jan Verwoert