photos by Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu
Sweeping Walk: Gezi
Performance
Performance video 17'29''
2014
© Istanbul Queer Art Collective
Performed by Tuna Erdem
Shot and Edited by Burak Serin
Sound Recording by Seda Ergul
Photographs by Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu
Original score by Milan Knizak, Sunday Event, 1965
Exhibited at British Council Turkey's online exhibition platform Museum without Walls, as a part of "Dancing with Witches"
"Dancing with Witches" is curated by Mine Kaplangı
Exhibited at Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe as a part of "unspeakable home, enchanting companions"
"unspeakable home, enchanting companions" is curated by Derya Bayraktaroğlu
So much public space is forbidden ground to the pedestrian that he is forced to seek his social contacts either in private areas (houses) or in commercially exploited ones (cafes or rented halls), where he is more or less imprisoned. In this way, the city is losing its most important function: that of a meeting place. It is highly significant that the police try to justify their measures against "against" happenings on the public thoroughfares by arguing that such manifestations impede traffic (…) the happenings are aimed chiefly at the recovery of social space -- the street -- so that the contacts essential for play may be established.
1966, Constant Nieuwenhuis, New Urbanism
The "Sweeping Walk" series are all about sweeping in its various meanings. They are placed in spaces that are about to be swept away by the wave of vicious urban development and global tourism: Gezi Park which is only still standing due to the Occupy Gezi movement, Istiklal Street that has already been an enormous construction site crawling with police, being reconstructed and made safe for tourists, since a year before Gezi uprising and Phaselis that has managed to survive the Persian, the Roman even the bee invasion in its 2500 year life span, will not withstand the invasion of global tourist, is under the treat of being opened to the construction of hotel chains. The Sweeping Walk performances aim to sweep, that is, " to trace or describe the locus or extent of" this impeding disaster, lest they should be "swept under the rug". Each performance sweeps, that is "covers the entire image of" these precarious places and the performance contains the sweeping of the performer's footsteps, that is a symbolic act of the wish to sweep the carbon footprints, that "the now" is leaving on the "here".