What gets lost in a translation? What can we learn from unsaid things?
And how is that silenced shaped? What do forgotten words, books, libraries and archives still tell us? Can we liberate ourselves from assumptions and pose questions instead?
In the HüzünProject she initiated with Nihat Karataslı she participated in the IKSV Research Programme in Istanbul. She worked for After the Archive? an initiative that gains attention to silenced archives and questions the role of archives in the creation of public memory in Turkey.
She likes to curate exhibitions in unexpected spaces, like an archival box that once belonged to Ulises Carrión: No Todo ~ Niet Alles or the public ferry that crosses the waters of Amsterdam for the Amsterdam Ferry Festival. At the end of 2021 she became the artistic director of HMK: an exhibition space an artist-in-residence programme located in a 17th century chapel.
She teached at the MA programme F for Fact at the Sandberg Institute and the Language and Image Department at the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She is also a teacher at the Fine Arts Bachelor programme at Minerva Art Academy in Groningen. Although her practice is about things that cannot be said with words, she sometimes writes for art magazines like Mister Motley.
Boğada: participative design in the public space
BOĞADA es una intervención de urbanismo táctico en el vecindario turco de Kadiköy, a la fecha el único distrito de Estambul que acoge este tipo de iniciativas de democracia participativa. BOĞADA es también la etapa final de Re-Lab, un proyecto de cooperación cultural liderado por hablarenarte y TAK Kadiköy que pone en diálogo, a la vez que promueve, diferentes prácticas vinculadas con los procesos de transformación participativa en los contextos de Madrid y Estambul. El colectivo Todo por la Praxis fue el responsable del desarrollo del workshop colectivo BOĞADA. Junto con los colectivos turcos Herkes için Mimarlık (Architecture for All), -trak y Onaranlar Kulübü (Repair Club), trabajaron en el prototipo de dispositivos e herramientas de acción directa que posibilitasen procesos de transformación urbana participativa. Re-Lab se enmarca en el programa Tandem, una iniciativa de European Cultural Foundation(Amsterdam), MitOst (Berlin), Anadolu Kültür (Estambul), financiada por Stiftung Mercator (Essen). Además, cuenta con el especial apoyo del Instituto Cervantes de Estambul.
BOĞADA collective workshop is the final stage of Re-Lab, an international collaboration project promoted by hablarenarte and TAK Kadiköy that focuses on spacemaking participatory processes. Spanish collective Todo por la Praxis ran BOĞADA, a collaborative workshop that promotes the creation of devices that respond to the main needs of neighbours and users of one of the most active public spaces in Kadiköy, the “Bull Square”. BOĞADA workshop exchanges expertise and knowledge, based on practice, between collectives who work across the fields of art/design/architecture, in order to create projects together with the local communities and their inherent needs. Along with Turkish collectives Herkes için Mimarlık (Architecture for All), -trak and Onaranlar Kulübü (Repair Club), the workshop employs “do-it-yourself” methodology that involves direct responsibility for all project phases. Thus users identify with the projects and become aware of what they can bring about themselves. BOĞADA workshop final goal is the prototyping of devices in Kadiköy neighborhood, that could respond to the needs of the local community, encouraging construction of citizen based democracy in such crucial times. Re-Lab is supported by Instituto Cervantes in Istanbul and Tandem programme, an initiative of the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam), MitOst (Berlin), Anadolu Kültür (Istanbul), and funded by Stiftung Mercator (Essen).
Text by Firat Genc in 1 + 1 Forum
Collaborative design project in the public space
Boğa square, Kadıköy, Istanbul
15-20 September 2017
Instituto Cervantes de Istanbul