Face of the Nation: what can be seen by combining portraits of leaders in one
You can understand a lot about a country by looking at its leader. And if you look at all the leaders at once? Guney Soykan, an artist from Amsterdam of Turkish origin, tries to answer this question in his project "Face of the Nation", combining portraits of leaders who have been in power for the last 50 years in one — in proportion to the time of their rule.
"The elected leaders are a reflection of the society that chose them. And this applies not only to ideas, but also to the personality of the leader. I believe that people vote for someone in whom they can recognize themselves to some extent," Soikan says. His project is definitely a reflection of history, whether it's a portrait of North Korea, which looks almost like the face of one person, or Turkey with its numerous political coups.
(11 photos in total)
Great Britain: from Harold Wilson to David Cameron.
North Korea: from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Un.
South Africa: from Charles Swart to Jacob Zuma.
Turkey: from Suleiman Demirel to Ahmet Davutoglu.
Syria: from Noureddine al-Atassi to Bashar al-Assad.
France: from Charles de Gaulle to Francois Hollande.
Germany: from Kurt Kiesinger to Angela Merkel.
USA: from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama.
Russia: from Leonid Brezhnev to Vladimir Putin.
Egypt: from Gamal Nasser to Abdel al-Sisi.
Cuba: from Osvaldo Torrado to Raul Castro.