Didem Pekün is a media artist, whose work is reminiscent of the American video maker, poet, and gay rights activist Marlon Riggs (1957–1994). His deeply personal and emotional videos tested the conventions of the media essay, a form that attempts to unravel the complexities of current political events. Pekün, like Riggs, has blurred the line between narrative essay and fact-based documentary. In her case, she has crafted something that is both temporal and primordial. For nearly two decades Pekün has managed to stitch together a peripatetic life, much like other international artists of our time. Born in Istanbul, where she attended a French high school, she was an avid music enthusiast and record collector from an early age. Starting in her teens, she worked as a DJ in Istanbul’s underground music-dance club scene. Her early music experience had an impact on her video editing style, echoing her early DJ practice. Her research-based practice is concerned with the production of subjectivities, violent geographies and displacement.