The project FABRİKA – The Memory of a Place, The Place of Memory examines the Sümerbank Bergama Textile Factory, which left a profound mark on the town of Bergama, through the concepts of collective memory, industrial heritage, and the right to the legacy of labour, within the framework of urban sociology, economy, and culture. The research book, produced as part of the project and published concurrently with the exhibition in 2022, consists of three sections. The introductory section features a text by Gül Köksal.

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The first section, The Memory of a Place, focuses on the social transformation that accelerated with the opening of the Textile Factory in 1960 in Bergama, one of the historically significant settlements in northern Aegean. For thousands of years, the town’s economy and socio-cultural structure had been shaped by continuous agricultural and livestock production. The section explores the impact of Sümerbank factories on industrialisation and social transformation across Turkey, examining their reflections in Bergama. Covering the period from the factory’s establishment to its closure as a result of privatisation policies, and extending to the present day, this section presents a chronological narrative based on institutional and personal, written and visual archives.

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The second section, The Place of Memory, revisits the chronological historical narrative presented in the first section, this time through oral history interviews with former factory workers. The history of the factory is conveyed through the words and testimonies of the people who worked there.

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The third section, The Factory as a Vision of the Future, presents two architectural design projects developed in response to the future of the Bergama Textile Factory. The projects emerged from the design workshops titled Industrial Heritage as a Vision of the Future, held in April and May 2022 with the support of Gazhane Environmental Volunteers and the participation of Rastminus Design Collective. The two projects were developed by Alper Aksu, Alp Emre Çelik, İzzet İlgün, Selin Tutku Aslan, İldem Dinar, and Şeyma Bıyık from Rastminus Design Collective, under the consultancy of architect Fatih Kurunaz. Through their diverse approaches, the projects offer proposals for the spatial preservation of the factory and for strengthening its place in the collective memory of the town, ensuring that this industrial heritage can be carried into the future.