The student stereotype for creating a mess is under threat. A group of international (Erasmus) students see nothing but potential for Tarlabaşı’s chaotic crumbling backstreets. For their show, Division Unfolded: Tarlabaşı Intervention, they have turned a ruined building into their own private exhibition space.
“It was just full of crap when we came here,” says Alex Yair Von Pentz, an Erasmus student from Italy. A month ago, he and his fellow students were wondering the streets of Tarlabaşı, when they came across a crumbling pile on Eski Ҫeşme Sokak. There are no windows or doors, and the whole building looks like it’s close to collapse.
“These empty buildings were once full of life,” agrees Francesco Lupo, another of the exhibiting artists. “We want to bring people to Tarlabaşı, and challenge them to think about what the place means, and how much better it could be. It’s about creating a community.”
Division Unfolded is a collection of paintings, sculptures, photos and installations. The surroundings are incorporated into the exhibition so that the building itself becomes part of the artwork. The show is only on for one day, but there are crowds of young people; both students from all over the world and Turkish people.
Describing his work entitled “The Head of the Field”, Von Pentz says “I wanted to give a vision of Tarlabaşı in the future. People will forget about building, and instead grow plants and create parks.” His work is a projection in which his model of the city (created out of polystyrene and brick) sits below a floating shelf upon which plant shoots emerge.
In some cases, the building is the artwork. Young German artist and photographer Kathrin Sohlbach has preserved some of the rubble and rubbish the students cleared by covering it in plaster. Then, for a separate work, she has hung sheets of leather (that look like skin), again taking what was found from the rubbish in the building.
Untitled, by Kathrin Sohlbach
This site-specific installation embodied the dilapidation of the building, asking the viewer to reconsider the nature of architectural decay.
On another floor, Silva Albertini’s “Tarlabaşı Hope” is an intricate representation of Tarlabaşı made from wire. Below are large shards of broken glass, set in a specially prepared ‘ledge’ of candle wax. As the candles burn the glass collapses, which, Albertini says, represents the destruction that has been taking place in Tarlabaşı over the years.
Silva Albertini, “Tarlabaşı Hope”
Overall, the work is evocative and each of the (ten) exhibiting artists offer intelligent artistic statements within a space that is certainly unique. It’s a pity the show is only on for one day; but then perhaps this is a statement in itself about the natural entropy of Tarlabaşı.
After the project, Italian artist Francesco Lupo destroys a piece of art in the dilapidated Istanbul neighbourhood of Tarlabaşı (10 June)
there is always an uneasy feeling about all these kind of performances in abondoned/appropriated places. Tarlabaşı had a strong fight against the gentrification in those 280 buildings. Now they will be turned into posh hotels and lofts. But the rest of the neighborhood is still there and is resisting. To make an “art event” without any proper communication with the real residents, at the least, seems awkward. An artistic space opened up by the intrusion of the capital does not seem to be a decent “opportunity” for an exhibition. Even, one might think, it might sound as the frontier of the invasion.
Dear Fahri,
I am Alex, one of the organizers of the project. I find your opinion totally right and fair. What you say here is exactly what we figured out the week after the first event. Even though we thought our action was on a good cause for the locals, after sunday the 3rd we found kids enjoying the environment of the space, and soon after all our works vandalized by junky kids.
The second and last event was a different story. We realized that we where behaving exactly as colonizers, so we let the friends who work so hard for the show have the chance to exhibit on the second event, but especially Francesco Lupo, the main mind of the project, did a performance representing our mistake.
Just to informe you, after he destroied with his own hands his sculpture-installation, i cried foe half hour due to the understanding of our mistake.
Thank you for this comment, we are glad that someone understands our naive selfishness.
We are sorry for the people of tarlabasi. We will always be.
Hello.
We are also a group of erasmus students, planning an artproject here in Istanbul. We also thought about the same topics, and using abandonned houses. but we also thought about the problem, not to seem like western colonizators, that just optrude their values on an eastern culture.
we would really like to exchange our experiences!
please write us:
projectara12@gmail.com
Wow you guys did an amazing job!!!
Doing art work at the ruined houses in Tarlabaşı… fantastic idea!
Congratulations and greetings to all of you !