#Istanbul Biennial rocks. Two pieces on the biennial

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440 pairs of women’s shoes were hung on one of the city walls in #Istanbul. This is the number of women murdered by their husbands in Turkey during the year

….and I believe I may be the only one who has not shared photos from the Biennial in his/her Instagram account…

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‘It’s hard not to panic’ – Istanbul Biennial targets waste, greed, garbage and gorgons

World news: Turkeyby Adrian Searle

The art festival is spotlighting our tragic impact on the planet. Thank goodness for the lighter moments – such as James Baldwin walking, talking and smoking by the Bosphorus

Japanese arrowroot blankets the Alabama countryside, strangling the trees and fields. An endless tyre dump stretches to the horizon. Plastic waste accumulates in the oceans, forming a seventh continent. In fact, the agglomeration of plastic waste floating about in the Pacific is sometimes referred to as the Seventh Continent. An indictment of the way we live, the ever-growing garbage patch is testament to our wastefulness, heedlessness and greed. The Seventh Continent also provides the title for curator Nicolas Bourriaud’s exhibition for the 16th Istanbul Biennial. The biennial is itself another kind of accumulation, and one that is itself not without its own material and ecological cost, its own political ramifications.

Turkey’s Art Scene Makes a Comeback, Under Erdogan’s Shadow

NYT > Turkeyby By Alex Marshall

Major museums are opening, and the Istanbul Biennial is underway. Just don’t ask about politics.

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Looking at the “national car”

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Turkey’s ruling elites are at the height of a banal nationalism wave. In this staged photo, the minister along with a group of journalists and columnists, are looking at a prototype of a car that will be a national product. We do not see the “yerli oto” but a group collaborating media personnel like in some previous cases “see” the model. Turkey effectively prevented the development of digital economies by censorship and heavy taxation. Many creative people already left the country. Now the minister Varank, once allegedly headmaster of Aktrolls, is now making rounds of technology shows. All shallow. Not any real infrastructural progress…

 

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Politics of mothers

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If you search “HDP and mothers” in Google News you will reach a bunch of news and commentaries on the first page all from the pro-government media. It probably started with a sincere mother, but it was quickly appropriated by the government circles and trolls to encourage more mothers to participate (More mothers join protest at HDP office over sons’ abductions …) and to raise a more intense anti-HDP political climate. I am not sure if AKP really worked out a strategy here. I am not sure if a minister (the one with a beige dress and pretentiously sad face) attends a sit-in at the gate of an opposition party’s office and waiting for the latter to fix a problem. AKP leadership is continuously trying to save the day and it looks they have no plans beyond saving the day. Moreover, despite dramatizing around mothers, it was their leader who made masses boo Berkin Elvan’s mother in a rally, and it was their minister of internal affairs who let the police attack Saturday mothers…

 

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