Erkin Kıryaman completed his B.A. at Ege University, English Language and Literature Department in 2011. He earned his first M.A. at Yaşar University with the thesis “Psychoanalysis, Trauma and War: A Comparative Study of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Pat Barker’s Regeneration” in 2015. His second M.A. is completed with the thesis entitled “Images of the ‘New Woman’ in the Works of Late Victorian Male Novelists” at Ege University in 2016. He is currently a research assistant and a Ph.D. candidate at Ege University, English Language and Literature Department. His fields of interests include trauma theory and memory studies, feminism and gender theories, late Victorian novel, and twentieth century British novel.
Within the context of the life of yoruks, the status of being konargöçer/nomad refers to their migration and settlement according to their and their cattle’s need in winter and in summer. However, in the course of the change of the world order, their konargöçer/nomadic life has also changed and been transformed.
While yoruks see nature as their nests, and thus live in harmony with nature, many recent changes such as changing climactic conditions, technological agricultural developments, drought, settlement politics, urbanisation, and obligatory education for children push them to be a part of the modern and industrial cities. This condition, as a result, also causes fragmentation between them and nature. Particularly, while it is continuously emphasised that nature has been destroyed and abused in an unrecoverable manner in the twenty-first century, also called as Anthropocene, nomadic practices of yoruks have been also damaged and disrupted. In this sense, “konargöçer” or the nomadic practices which define and characterise the lifestyles of yoruks begin to fade into oblivion and have been carried from their hearts. This distortion also sheds light upon the nomadic states of the modern people of the city while also pinning down their temporary attachments to nature or positions. People who live in modern cities regard nature as an escape field and an object of desire. On the other hand, yoruks have been removed from their authentic sites of nature, which also underline their object of desire. The quest of object of desire, in this fashion, is a way of escapade and excuse for the people who live in modern cities. Yet, it is a nostalgia and longing for the yoruks. That is why konargöçer has an ambivalent meaning. On one hand, it refers to the yoruks; on the other hand, it alludes to the changing positional statuses of the modern people living in cities. In a similar vein, in urbanised and modern world, konargöçer has also become a substitute for difference and disengagement. This reminds of Derrida’s argument on différance* which refers to both differing and deferring from its own meaning, which explains that the sign is different from other signs, but also postpones its meaning in relation to the other signs in contexts. This difference and deferral may also imply the condition of konargöçer which becomes a new definition for the metaphorical nomadic status of people living in modern cities. The nostalgic quest of konargöçernomad and the mobile status of the modern people exhibit that only traces, connotations, illusions and projections have been left from konargöçer. In other words, there are only bits and pieces that either characterise konargöçer or can be used to trace him/her.
This exhibition revolves around the temporary attachments of people living in the modern cities in his quest of harmony and identity by also referring to the overtones of the journeys of yoruks whose life is transformed from harmony into fragmentation. Thus, this exhibition aims to reflect on layers and channels of meaning that concentrate on the remains and particles left from konargöçer yoruks and permeates in the lives of modern city people who are also modern nomads due to continuously changing lifestyles and positions. In short, konargöçer begins to represent not only yoruks who have already been identified with the concept but also konargöçer positions and attachments that modern people develop and experience. Thus, it is impossible to find the authentic and real konargöçer but only his/her traces. They are not complete but fragmented. They are not singular but plural, and konargöçer refers to the present with the traces of the past.
Artists: Ramazan Can, Fırat Neziroğlu, Şakir Gökçebağ, Ilya Noé, Mustafa Boğa, Jack Forbes, Trish Andersen
*Derrida, Jacques. “Différance.” Identity: A Reader. Eds. Paul du Gay, Jessica Evans and Peter Redman. London: SAGE Publications, 2000.87-93.
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