Whisper While Searching
Video 6'25" & digital print photo, 2024
Exhibition layout images:
Cloud, Paving Stone, Whistle - Tohum Art Space, 2024
“Sometimes you need to know something over and over again. Sometimes we forget, then we remember. Then we forget, then we remember. Then..."
We'll forget again.
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts
The Akpınar Stream, flowing through the middle of Urla and dividing the town in an east-west direction, separated the Turkish and Greek neighborhoods in the 1920s. However, Urla's markets and bazaars were dynamic spaces of social interaction, uniting different cultures. The "Malgaca Market," where the produce of the Malgaca Plain was bought and sold, and the adjacent "Historical Arasta Bazaar," were more than just places of commerce; their coffee houses and resting areas were also spaces where cultures intertwined, learned from, influenced, and integrated with each other.
In his 17th-century travelogue, *Seyahatname* (Book of Travels), Evliya Çelebi describes a magically beautiful vine in Urla, which he calls the "Sultan's Bazaar." Located in the middle of a market, near a coffeehouse, it was so large that two people could only embrace it, and it covered the entire main street of the market, blocking out the sun. The number 37 is also a symbol of spiritual guidance, associated with concepts such as commitment, communication, trust, respect, understanding, compassion, and love.
This grapevine, monumentalized by the traveler's description, represents the life cycle and rebirth in some cultures. The cyclical development of the grapevine is also an indication of nature's continuous renewal.
The *Whisper While Searching* project adds a new layer of experience to a cyclical moment of life as it searches for this monumental vine among the cobblestones of the Historical Arasta, alongside the tradesmen and bazaar-goers who continue to work there despite the changing and renewing cultural structure of today. While reflecting on the relationship between humans and nature and the meanings underlying the monumentalization of nature, it aims to evoke memory through the contemporary connections of the space. Through the excitement and communication derived from imagining and trying to remember the vine, it constructs a new rhetorical space in the public sphere.
*The study takes its name from the following sentence mentioned in A. Sedef Tunçağ's book "Urla: Documents and Memories": " The Greeks believed that the vineyard had a living spirit. Entering the vineyard during the midday heat of July was forbidden, as they feared the vineyard, which was in its midday slumber, would awaken; even those around the vineyard would speak in whispers."
In Pursuit of the Vine: IR's Ethereal Exploration
Video: 6'25''
This study, which investigates how words, images, forms, and visual narratives produce meaning in public spaces; how they relate to people and create an impact, includes interviews conducted with shopkeepers in the Urla Bazaar.
About the Exhibition:
CLOUD | PAVING STONE | WHISTLE
October 19 - November 30, 2024
TOHUM Art Space, Urla
Sezgi Abalı, Behçet Aktaş, Neda İsmail Atar, Selin Atik, Levent Ayata, Günseli Baki, Gülderen Depas, Ersan Deveci, Gökay Gedik, Ali Kanal, Hakan Kırdar and Tohum Atölye Collective: Cenk Macar, Dane Rasgen, Paulina Özlem Pazarlıoğlu
Herodotus, a Greek historian, geographer, and writer, said of the cities settled in the region inhabited by the Ionians, "They are built under the most beautiful sky and in the most beautiful climate we know on earth." According to him, neither the regions further north nor those further south can be compared to Ionia. Urla, which includes Klazomenai, one of the twelve ancient Ionian cities, has held an important position in the Mediterranean basin for centuries due to its geography, climate, socio-cultural and social fabric, agricultural production, and maritime trade.
The exhibition, conceived with the intention of looking at Urla's recent changes and transformations from its present perspective, focusing on its public spaces, centers on Urla through its public spaces from a historical perspective. The works in the exhibition consist of wall, floor, and ceiling installations made up of photographs, documents, videos, and ready-made and found objects, mostly created for this exhibition, by artists from different production practices.
Curatorial Organization:
Hakan Kırdar and Sezgi Abalı