“Archiving for Future Strategies”
In recent years, we have witnessed uprisings that have changed the flow of history in not too far-off geographies, such as Greece, Ukraine, Egypt, Tunisia and Spain. The feeling emanating in the wake of these uprisings, which were in some cases pursued to be translated into parliamentary politics, or sometimes followed by periods of oppression greater than before, seems to be of a temporary defeat for now. In the knowledge that the times when people feel at their lowest could also be the time for the most momentous preparations, one of the instruments often expressed in discussions about strategies for the future were archives. Could revisiting and rethinking the documentation of the movements and the uprisings we consider to be finished–not with a nostalgic view of a reminiscence, nor in longing for a golden age, but with the aim of creating new political subjects–provide us with a fruitful ground for discussion? Although every single second of these special moments of history were documented and recorded many times over, from various different angles, and have left behind massive heaps of data; by the subjects who have made them happen, they are often described to be ‘unrepresentable’. Even though the anonymous and collective knowledge produced in extraordinary conditions is extremely impressive, what would be the best way to examine these archives–apart from the present ‘free sharing, free access, free use’ and the strategies of exposure that are at work–in order to bind past experiences with future dreams, and to enhance the strength of the subjects? This talk aims to open up a modest discussion about strategies of remembrance by way of works that have set out from archives about movements and uprisings in Turkey and from around the world.
Zeyno Pekünlü graduated from the Department of Painting of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, and after completing the Artistic Production and Research Master program at the University of Barcelona she obtained her proficiency in arts (doctorate) at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. The recent artistic practice of Pekünlü focuses on deconstructing the production and distribution processes of knowledge, using methods of montage, rearrangement and decontextualisation. Her adopted attitude of a collector that started with gathering found images and texts, has in time turned towards the dustbins at university lecture theatres and litter left under the desks, to the enormous and disorganised digital archive of the Internet, and lately to the heaps of necessary, unnecessary, memorized, universal, personal, momentary or lasting information that people accumulate throughout their lives.
The event is free of charge.
Invitations available from the Akbank Sanat ticket office on the event day, one hour before the event begins