Anna-Lena Wenzel DRITTE RUME

Kristeva: Fremde sind wir uns

selbst, S. 203.
Jahresangabe / Ausgabe fehlt
(siehe Korr. Epic)

Vgl. Bhabha, Homi K.:

Die Verortung der Kultur,
Tbingen 2000.

RESISTING VERTICALITY,
OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY:
The protests of
Summer 2013
in GEZI PARK and
TAKSIM SQUARE
By Eray ayl

What good is a barricade if it fails to stop the opponent?

Indeed, what good is any designed object if it does not serve
the purpose for which it has been produced?
Figure 1 shows one of the barricades set up June last year in and around
Istanbuls Taksim Square, the initial scene of the wave of public protests that has taken Turkey by storm over the past year. The protests
started on May 27th, 2013, in response to a bulldozer that drove into
Gezi Park, one of the last remaining green spaces in Istanbuls touristic
and cultural center. The bulldozer was charged with orders from above
to demolish part of Gezi and make way for a new urban-architectural
project involving the rebuilding of a long-demolished 19th century
military barracks in the park and the construction of vehicular tunnels
around the square (Figure 2). Activists started gathering to stop the
demolition, in turn to face violent crackdown by the police. This only
contributed to the size and intensity of the protests: the more violently
the police acted, the more people joined the ranks of the activists. But
the growth also involved an expansion in scale. The protests spread to
other parts of the country, as did the police crackdown. Whereas the
law enforcement had to retreat from the globally visible and symbolic
space of Taksim Square and Gezi Park, elsewhere in Turkey those who
took to the streets were violently suppressed: within only a week into
the protests, four activists had died, and tens, severely injured.

Figure 1. Photograph by Burak

Arkan showing the Abdullah Cmert
barricade

Figure 2. 3-d computer rendering of

the Taksim Pedestrianization Project
by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality

109

108

normale Strae handelt, fr die die Straenverkehrsordnung gilt, scheinen die

Regeln hier auer Kraft gesetzt. Die Unachtsamkeit der Fugnger paart sich
mit der Verunsicherung der Autofahrer, doch das Ergebnis ist auch hier eine erhhte Konzentration und gegenseitige Rcksichtnahme.
Die Philosophin und Semiotikerin Julia Kristeva beschreibt die Erfahrung der Verunsicherung im Hinblick auf die Begegnung mit dem
Fremden. In ihrem Buch Fremde sind wir uns selbst schreibt sie: Angesichts des Fremden, den ich ablehne und mit dem ich mich identifiziere, beides zugleich, lsen sich meine fest gefgten Grenzen auf, meine Konturen zerflieen, Erinnerungen an Erlebnisse, in denen man
mich fallengelassen hat, berfluten mich, ich verliere die Haltung. Ich
fhle mich verloren, konfus.1 Kristeva hebt die Auflsungen der Grenzen hervor, die dazu fhren, dass sich ein Gefhl der Orientierungslosigkeit und Verunsicherung ausbreitet: Werden die Grenzen zwischen
Innen und Auen, Subjekt und Objekt, Eigenem und Fremdem pors
und permeabel, geraten Klassifizierungs- und Ordnungssysteme ins
Wanken. Die Folgen dieser Grenzberschreitungen sind offen und alles andere als vorhersehbar. Die gewohnten Wahrnehmungsweisen, die
hufig das Gesehene automatisch vervollstndigen und einordnen, werden unterbrochen und neue Verweiszusammenhnge und subjektive
Herangehensweisen erffnet, um auf diese Weise imaginre wie reale
Dritte Rume entstehen zu lassen. Vormals feststehende Koordinaten
geraten in Bewegung, Bedeutungen werden verschoben und Grenzen
brchig. Es entstehen neue Mglichkeiten und andere Denkweisen.
Ein offener Raum, in dem sich heterogene Bedeutungen und Kontexte
berlagern und in dem die Fragen die Antworten berwiegen.
Solche offenen Rume entstehen auch, wenn Straen fr Autos
gesperrt und fr andere Nutzungen zur Verfgung stehen. Bei Demonstrationen werden diese Freirume genutzt, um klare Botschaften zu formulieren, bei Straenfesten sind die Nutzungsmglichkeiten unbestimmter, ergeben sich mehr Mglichkeiten der Aneignung.
Pltzlich verschieben sich die Nutzungs- und Bewegungsweisen. Die
blichen Hierarchien auf der Strae geraten in Unordnung. Es entstehen Zwischenzustnde, die sich laut dem Philosophen und Literaturwissenschaftler Homi K. Bhabha den identitren Zuschreibungen und
Einordnungen entziehen und darber hinausgehende Erfahrungen bzw.
Identitten begrnden. Diese Identitten bezeichnet Bhabha als hybride Identitten, kulturelle Mischformen, die festgefahrene Dichotomien
aufbrechen.2 Sie vermgen, eine Distanzierung und Hinterfragung der
gewohnten Ordnung zu bewirken und Neudefinitionen anzustoen
in anderen Worten: Dritte Rume zu konstituieren.

Eray ayl is currently completing an interdisciplinary PhD

at University College London
(UCL). A collaboration between
the fields of anthropology and
architectural history, his doctoral research has looked into
the ways in which historicity is
negotiated through architectural memorialization in the forms
of site-specific commemorative
events, memorial museums and
monuments. Alongside working
on his PhD, ayl has designed
and taught courses across UCL
and beyond, exploring an on-site
and object-based approach to
discussing the relations between
history, memory, space and place. Since 2008, he has also worked as a design and architecture
critic for various monthly publications. For more on ayl see:
http://www.eraycayli.com

Eray ayl RESISTING VERTICALITY, OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY

For a brief discussion of this

involvement and control, see:
. D. Karatepe, 2013, Islamists,
State and Bourgeoisie: The
Construction Industry in
Turkey, paper presented in
World Economics Association
Conference 2013 (Neoliberalism
in Turkey: A Balance Sheet of
Three Decades), http://turkeyconference2013.world
economicsassociation.org/
wp-content/uploads/Karatepe_
wea_application.pdf

For more on TOK, see:

O. Karaman, 2013, Urban
Renewal in Istanbul: Reconfigured Spaces, Robotic Lives,
International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research 37 (2),
pp. 715733.

For a series of TV commercials

for AKPs election campaign
in 2014, see: Yeni afak,
04.03.2014, www.yenisafak.
com.tr/video-galeri/akpartinin-icraata-bakarimreklamlari/14211

For an brief discussion of this

rhetoric, see: C. nal, Erdoan
resorts to varied strategies to
win local elections, Todays
Zaman, 06.04.2014, www.
todayszaman.com/_erdoganresorts-to-varied-strategiesto-win-local-elections_
343816.html

110

S. Frazer, Abdullah Cmert 2nd

Turkish Protester Killed During
Turkey Demonstrations, The
Huffington Post, 06.04.2014,
www.huffingtonpost.com/
2013/06/04/abdullah-comert2nd-turkish-protester-killed_
n_3383092.html

The particular barricade shown in Figure 1 was in many ways the conflation of these various simultaneous but geographically dispersed moments of protest. It is located a hundred meters from Taksim Square,
but named after Abdullah Cmert, the activist who lost his life in the
southern city of Antakya due to being shot in the head with a gas canister.1 The barricade is also a temporal conflation as it brings together
different moments across the chronology of the protests. The construction iron and the steel panels, of which the barricade is made, come
from the project that was then still under construction in Taksim. Officially called the Taksim Square Pedestrianization Project, this is one
of the numerous urban and architectural projects pursued by the ruling
party AKP (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi; in English: Justice and Development
Party) who have been governing Turkey for more than a decade now.
The AKPs political discourse is primarily built on the idea of progress, or in economic terms, development, which is also found in the
partys name. Much of this development has been driven by the construction sector and therefore large-scale projects such as the one concerning Taksim have been given a crucial role. The governing authorities have had a very close involvement in and often direct control over
such projects.2 This has led to the state institution TOK transform into
the countrys leading actor in construction, which was founded in the
1980s as the states housing agency but has now begun to build a wide
range of projects stretching from stadia, universities and culture centers
to monuments, military buildings and transport hubs.3 Actions speak
louder than words (Lafa deil icraata bakarm), a mantra that has been
popularized by many members of the ruling party, very well summarizes the political importance that the government give to large-scale
architectural and infrastructural projects across Turkeys cities.4 The
AKP propaganda poster seen in Figure 3 reads: If I were stranded
alone on an island, the three things Id take with me would be Recep
Tayyip Erdoan [the AKPs leader and Prime Minister]; because he
would build roads, hospitals, airports, and a subway system. Erdoan
himself has suggested over and again that they are the most hardworking government Turkey has seen, and has blamed all other sociopolitical actors past and present for lack of ambition, clear aim, purpose, and
progressive direction.5
I will return below to this emphasis on the idea of progress. But let
me first turn from rhetoric to architectural space, and look at what sort
of spatial negotiations and relations have been revolving around these
state-sponsored architectural projects. Figure 4 presents four stills from
the 2012 video introducing the Taksim Pedestrianization Project.

Importantly, the viewpoint that the video provides is largely an aerial

one. This vertical relationship that the video wants its viewers to have
with Taksim is fundamentally contradictory to what would have happened in an everyday situation, such as when walking, standing, sitting
around or driving past the square.6 Such an emphasis on the aerial view
characterizes numerous other mega-projects the government has pursued. Consider the buildings seen in Figure 5, all of which are meant
to look like something when seen from above: a stadium supposedly
resembling the octagram that is believed to be characteristic of the art
and architecture of the Ottoman Empires predecessor Seljuks; another
stadium in Malatya that is supposed to look like an apricot because this
fruit is what the city is famous for; and a marina in Istanbuls Tuzla district that is meant to look like a fish. But spatial verticality is pursued
in more directly experiential ways than these architectural representations. Consider the military outposts that TOK have recently started
to build in rural areas across eastern and southeastern Turkey (Figure
6). The authorities began building these outposts as soon as the violent
conflict between the army and the Kurdistan Workers Party that had
been taking place in the region for three decades came to a halt two
years ago thanks to peace negotiations between the party is leadership
and the government. The outposts are characterized by their watchtowers that are distinctively taller than their former counterparts, and
thus seek leverage by transforming the relationship between the armed
forces and their surroundings into a predominantly vertical one.
The establishing of a vertical relationship with rural space through
architecture has recently also seen an urban counterpart, as seen in the
new barricades dubbed steel castles (Figure 7) which have recently been
custom made for the Turkish police force following the challenges they
experienced during the protests throughout the past year. These steel
castles are fully equipped with cameras that allow for the recording
of footage from above as well as an automated tear gas release system
that gets activated if a certain amount of load is pressed against the barricade. Multi-functionality is spoken of as a key characteristic of these barricades; they double as police checkpoint and temporary detention center with a small cage where protestors arrested on the spot are initially
held. But the one feature of these so-called steel castles praised the
most by the authorities is that they have been designed as portable structures that can easily be set up, removed, and re-instituted elsewhere.7
In the age of portable and castle-like barricades, what good is the
barricade introduced at the beginning (Figure 1), indeed, if it takes longer to build and lasts shorter in case of attack? Figure 8 is a photograph

To be sure, the imposing of

such a viewpoint on the viewers
is unique neither to the introductory visuals of the Taksim
Pedestrianization project nor to
Turkey, and is shared by various
computer-aided three-dimensional representations of contemporary urban-architectural
projects across the world.
For more on the aerial view
and its visual-cultural importance, see: M. Dorrian and F.
Pousin (eds.) 2013 Seeing from
Above: the Aerial View in Visual
Culture, London: I. B. Tauris;
on its architectural-historical
importance see: D. Deriu 2007
Picturing ruinscapes: the aerial
photograph as image of historical trauma, in: F. Guerin and
R. Hallas (eds.) The Image and
the Witness: Trauma, Memory and
Visual Culture, London: Wallflower Press, pp. 189203;
and M. Dorrian 2007
The Aerial View: Notes for a
Cultural History, in: STRATES:
Matriaux pour la recherche en
sciences sociales, pp. 105118.

F. Kzlkoyun, elik kaleyi

Emniyet istedi, Trk mhendisler gelitirdi, Hrriyet,
03.05.2014, www.hurriyet.com.
tr/ekonomi/26342851.asp

Figure 3 Election campaign

poster produced by the AKPs
youth branch

111

Eray ayl RESISTING VERTICALITY, OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY

Eray ayl RESISTING VERTICALITY, OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY

Figure 5. Top two images: 3-d

computer renderings of stadium projects, by TOK and bottom image:
3-d computer rendering of the new
Tuzla Marina, by Via Properties &
Grsoy Group

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkeys Council of State cancels Taksim pedestrianization project, 06.05.2014,
www.hurriyetdailynews.
com/turkeys-council-of-state-cancels-taksim-pedestrianization-project.aspx?pageID=238&nID=66095&NewsCatID=340

We had a fuller grasp of how the project looked only when we toppled
the barriers surrounding the construction site: gigantic tunnels and a
sea of concrete that stretches as far as the eye can see. We understood
that if and when the project is complete, the square would become
a strictly monitored and protected area that weighs down on people
rather than a place of public meeting.9
Therefore, the activists barricades served not only to protect the
square, but before that, to unveil it. While the unveiling concerned
what had gone on in the recent past with respect to the pedestrianization project, the protection had to do with the possibility of attack
in the near future. Most importantly, it exposed the spatial crisis that
the concept of public has over the past few decades been undergoing.
The crisis, as the activist puts it, is between the fact that public space
is increasingly becoming a strictly monitored and protected space
and the idea that it ought to be a place of public meeting. What is
more, this crisis has been recently highlighted in Turkey due not only
to the redesigning of Taksim Square, but also to the construction of an
altogether new, seven-hundred-thousand-squaremeter urban space in
Istanbul: the Yenikap Square (Figure 11).
The newness of Yenikap Square is not just a matter of redesign. It
has been created quite literally from scratch as landfill reclaimed from
the sea. At a capacity of one and a quarter million people, it has officially been designated as the Rally Grounds of Metropolitan Istanbul,
which means that any initiative to hold a demonstration in Istanbul
is now obliged to use this space in Yenikap. And, arguably, the main
reason why Yenikap Square has been built and designated as the official rally grounds has very much to do with its counterpart in Taksim.
Taksim Square has been the main venue of political demonstrations
over the past few decades due not only to its centrality and visibility but
also to its historical specificity. On May 1st, 1977, Taksim witnessed a
bloody massacre targeting thousands of activists celebrating the International Workers Day in what was then the largest demonstration in
Turkeys history. Unidentified assailants opened fire on the crowd from
the rooftops of the buildings surrounding the square, leaving more
than forty people dead.10 The day has been visually engraved in memory through an iconic image showing the Ataturk Culture Center, a
1970s opera and theater building and the most important architectural
landmark in the square, covered with a huge red banner that portrays
a blue-collar worker and reads May 1st (Figure 12). Since 1977 the
authorities have closed Taksim Square to May Day demonstrations,
with the only exception of the year 2010 when the government were

Y. Atlgan, 2013, Sonune

olursa olsun biz kazandk
[Interview with Zehra Frat
from Gmen Dayanma A/
Mtereklerimiz], Express 136,
pp. 3638: 36.

10 For a summary of what happened in Taksim on May 1st, 1977,

see: S. kinci, Turkeys bloody
1977 May Day still clouded
in mystery, World Socialist
Web Site, 01.05.2003, www.
wsws.org/en/articles/2003/05/
turk-m01.html

Figure 6. Photograph of a new

military outpost, by TOK

Figure 7. Photograph of the

steel-castle by Vatan newspaper

Figure 8. Photograph by Ycel

Kurun, showing the making of
a barricade near Taksim Square.

113

112

Figure 4 3-d computer renderings

of Taksim Pedestrianization
Project, by Istanbul Metropolitan
Municipality

from the night of May 31st when the activists occupying Gezi Park and
Taksim Square began to build the first barricades. They formed a brigade
to pass materials from hand to hand, and took shifts to keep guard. As
the police force retreated from the area, activists started to name the
barricades after the victims of police crackdown, use them as photographic background, hold drum circle sessions, and even organize a barricade design workshop that focused on function, structure, size, materials, color, and implementation (Figure 9). Up to the moment when
the police finally entered Gezi Park on the 15th of June to evacuate the
area, the barricades had therefore not only served the ordinary function
of demarcation and zone defense. They had also functioned as monuments where activists memorialized their shared pasts, as social hubs
where people hung out and met, as political platforms where protestors
reflected on their experiences and discussed what the future may hold.
Therefore, if in structures such as the steel castle multi-functionality is a design feature, in the activists barricades it was a somewhat intuitive way of using architectural space, which evolved gradually and
thanks to the participation of hundreds.
But the purposes that these structures afforded did not only concern
the barricade-as-object and involved the-barricade-as-process, and this
is what constitutes their historical specificity and requires a revisit to the
materials used in their production. Earlier I talked about how most of
these materials came from the construction site that Taksim Square had
become due to the so-called pedestrianization project. Now, it is important to remember that much of the square had for nearly a year been
fenced off and closed to public due to being under construction (Figure
10). Arguably, the barriers that then enclosed the site and concealed the
project concerned not only safety and security but also secrecy. Hardly
anybody knew what was exactly being built in the square and how the
pedestrianized area would actually look when completed, because the
wider public had not at all been informed about the definitive details
of the project or how it was proceeding. The contested legality of the
projectits progression often in spite of adverse court decisions8
meant that the authorities had to tweak certain aspects as construction progressed, and little was publicly revealed about such gradual
changes, too. What the pedestrianization project actually looked and
felt like was revealed only when scores of activists flocked into Taksim
Square and Gezi Park on May 31st to support those who had been standing their ground for the past few days, and when they removed the
barriers hiding the construction from sight. In the words of an activist
who was then at the spot:

Eray ayl RESISTING VERTICALITY, OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY

Eray ayl RESISTING VERTICALITY, OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY

11 Todays Zaman, stanbul

police intervene during reading of May Day statement,
21.04.2014, https://www.
todays-zaman.com/
news-345693-police-interveneduring-reading-of-may-daystatement.html
12 Todays Zaman, Unions,
civil society should forget
about Taksim, PM Erdoan
insists, 22.04.2014, www.
todayszaman.com/_unionscivil-society-should-forget-about-taksim-pm-erdogan-insists_345792.html

Figure 9. Poster announcing

a workshop on barricade design,
by D.C..

Figure 10. Photograph of

Taksim Square under construction,
by Zeki Gnal.

captions read the best-attended political gathering in the largest public

space in Turkeys history, thus seeking to further support the idea of
the countrys linear progress in time.
Therefore, whereas Yenikap is a space that promotes the idea of
history-as-linear-progress, to insist on gathering in Taksim is explore
a multidirectional and not-necessarily-linear relationship between the
past, the present and the future.14 Arguably, this is also what drove a
big part of the protests around Gezi Park last year. Consider the Ataturk Culture Center itself, which was covered by the activists banners
and posters, evoking the visual memory of 1977 (Figure 14). The Republic Monument in Taksim Square was also adorned in such a way,
but more importantly, its otherwise inanimate statues were given slices
of lemon and surgical masks, the items with which activists protected
themselves from teargas (Figure 15). The vast concrete facades of the late-modernist architecture in and around Gezi Park, such as those of the
Ceylan Intercontinental Hotel, functioned as something of an urban
canvas on which the activists projected visual documentation of and
news on the protests as they unfolded (Figure 16). In fact, not only the
surrounding edifices but also the park itself was appropriated to help
activists spatially orientate themselves vis--vis the past. The Armenian
activist group Nor Zartonk revealed that before this area became a park
in 1940s a big part of it was used an Armenian Cemetery, and appropriated a paving stone as a symbolic gravestone that read you took away
our cemetery; you will not be able to take our park (Figure 17). The
significance attributed to history through this symbolic gravestone was
therefore not one that suggested a nostalgic return to the past. Rather,
it was the grounding of present-day politics in an increased awareness
of the past.
To conclude by way of revisiting the question raised at the beginning: what purpose does a makeshift barricade serve? This is a question whose variants have been repeatedly asked not only to the Gezi
activists but also to those that participated in the various occupy movements across the world. What do the protestors want? What purpose
do the participants of these movements have in mind? Without a common real-political purpose, how much, if anything, can they achieve?
These questions are characterized by a teleological understanding of
history by the assumption that time always progresses linearly from
past to future, from intent to impact, from purpose to realization. This
hierarchization of time is often necessarily accompanied by its spatial
counterpart, one that understands space predominantly as a vertical
arrangement. It is an arrangement that needs to get to the top in order

Figure 11. 3-d computer rendering

of the new Yenikap Rally Grounds,
by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality

14 This relationship therefore

resonates with what Michael
Rothberg has called multidirectional memory. See:
M. Rothberg, 2009, Multidirectional Memory, Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.

115

114

13 . Altuncu, AK Parti Yenikap

mitingi: Erdoan konuurken alan boald, Radikal,
23.03.2014, www.radikal.com.
tr/politika/ak_parti_yenikapi_mitingi_erdogan_konusurken_alan_bosaldi-1182817

campaigning for a yes vote in a constitutional referendum for which

they were seeking the support of actors across the sociopolitical spectrum. Despite the official ban on Taksim, activists have insisted on gathering in the square every year on May 1st, which has led to strict law
enforcement measures and clashes between the people and the police.
When asked the reasons behind their insistence on Taksim, labor organizations and activists have repeatedly point to the squares memorial
significance. They have reminded that the 1977 events have meant that
May Day in Turkey is not so much a day of celebration as it is one of
commemoration, and in order to observe it as such, gatherings need to
happen right where the massacre took place: Taksim Square.11 But the
importance of Taksim is not just symbolic, as the demand for a full legal
investigation into the events of 1977 and its assailants, which remain
unidentified to this day, has also been an essential part of the activists
May Day agenda every year. Therefore, the insistence to gather in Taksim is an approach that sees political gatherings as an opportunity to
not only voice hopes and desires for the future but also to orientate oneself socio-politically in relation to the past.
The ban on the idea of protesting in Taksim has recently been
reinforced by the authorities not only legally but also architecturally, through the new Rally Grounds in Yenikap now indicated as the
admissible alternative: you are free to use Yenikap Square for Labor
Day.12 What might it mean, then, to create such alternative by way
of reclaiming land from the sea, that is, out of an area deprived of social and cultural history? It is to diminish the possibilities of operating
across timeof putting the past, present and future in an immediate
relationship with one another, and to limit the meaning and scope
of political gatherings to snapshots of the present that lack historical
orientation and spatial definition. After all, the impact of gatherings in
places such as the new Rally Grounds in Yenikap is first and foremost
as mediated representation rather than as on-the-ground-experience
an impact that often heavily depends on the vertical view, as recently
demonstrated by the visual documentation of the ruling partys rally in
Yenikap, so far the only gathering held in the new grounds (Figure 13).
Indeed, reports from the rally suggest that these meticulously framed
photos and videos were taken just before the Prime Minister actually
began to speak, and the majority of the participants were seen leaving
the grounds while the actual speech had just begun.13 In this spatial
configuration, bodies face a single direction and orientate towards a
higher spot be it the speaker himself or the cameras that are capturing
the event. When images of the event were circulated in the media, their

Eray ayl RESISTING VERTICALITY, OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY

Figure 12. Photograph of

Taksim Square with the Ataturk
Culture Center in the backdrop,
by Devrim D.P.T.

Figure 13. Photograph of the AKPs

demonstration in Yenikap (March
2014), by Anadolu Agency

Eray ayl RESISTING VERTICALITY, OCCUPYING TELEOLOGY

Figure 14. Photograph of the Ataturk

Culture Center during the protests of
Summer 2013, by Kerem zcan

Figure 16. Photograph of the

Ceylan Intercontinental Hotel,
by Efe Baysal

Figure 17. Photograph of the

symbolic gravestone in memory of
the destroyed Armenian cemetery,
by Nor Zartonk

DEEP
SEA
FISH
Von Silvina Der-Merguerditchian

Die Straen von Cihangir sind nicht sehr freundlich zu Fugngern, sie sind voller Steine, Schlaglcher, Hindernisse. Normalerweise geht man auf der Strae. Manchmal fahren die Autos
bedrohlich dicht an einem vorbei und drngen einen zurck auf
den Fuweg, aber im Allgemeinen ist es praktischer, auf der Strae
zu gehen. Die Autos wissen das und tolerieren dich. Manche
rufen dir sanft, andere etwas brutaler ihre Prsenz in Erinnerung. In Cihangir spazieren zu gehen bedeutet ein intensives
Hin-und-Herswitchen zwischen Strae und Brgersteig, ein Abschtzen, wie viele Schritte du auf dem Gehweg machen kannst,
bis du wieder auf der Strae landest, bis wieder die ersten Autos
vorbeikommen und dich daran erinnern, dass du auf ihrem Territorium unterwegs bist, und dich auf den Gehweg zurcktreiben.
Als ich vor fnf Jahren zum ersten Mal durch Istanbul ging, war ich voller Angst. Angesichts der Dichotomie Ich/Trkei war ich es gewohnt,
Angst zu empfinden. Die Menschen machten mir Angst, die Autos
machten mir Angst, die Brgersteige machten mir Angst, die Fenster
machten mir Angst

117

116

Figure 15. Photograph of the

Republic Monument during the
protests of Summer 2013, by
Yaln akr

to demonstrate political will and strength, and judges others because

they lack a plan to get to the top. But to perceive architecture, history,
and political subjectivity through this hierarchical relationship in space
and time is to miss the point. It is to overlook, for instance, the multifarious significance of the barricades. Whereas these objects potential
to fulfill their overt purpose to stop the opposition is evidently low,
the horizontal relationships that they invite constitute their actual
socio-political significance. Moreover, the horizontality in question
concerns not only space but also time. The relationships that develop
around these objects, at various stages such as the sourcing of materials, construction, and use, operate in multiple directions across time.
They help people discover the past and work towards the future, but
without actually privileging either of these directions in time. The historical edifices that are given contemporary relevance, and the informal
architectures whose production becomes a process of architectural
research in and of itself, call for a horizontally and nonlinearly conceived redefinition of the ways in which built objects and spaces help
negotiate history and political subjectivity.

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian,
geboren in Buenos Aires,
Argentinien, 1967.
Lebt und arbeitet in Berlin.
Der-Meguerditchian ist die
Initiatorin der Knstlerplattform www.underconstruction
home.net. Im Jahr 2014 hat
sie 6 Monate in der Knstlerakademie Tarabya/Istanbul als
Stipendiatin verbracht. Im Jahr
2015 wird sie im Armenischen
Pavilion whrend der Venedig
Biennale reprsentiert und
in Istanbul die Ausstellung
Enkel in DEPO parallel zur
Istanbul Biennale kuratieren.
Seit 2010 ist sie Art-director
der Seite www.houshamadyan.
org, ein Projekt, das sich zur
Aufgabe gemacht hat, das Alltagsleben der osmanischen
Armenier zu rekonstruieren.