13 Metrekare: From The Inside and Persistent

Artists: Amar Kılıç, Ayda Bayruğ, Ayhan Akikol, Aysel Alver, Baran Aykutbay, Bawer Doğanay, Beritan Çiftçi, Canan Budak, Cebrail Özmen, Ceylan Amak, Hamdullah Aydoğan, Hasan Abiç, İrfan Amida, Leyla Keskin, Mahmut Akdemir, Yasin Özçetin

Prepared by: Evrim Kavcar, Zeynep Ataş, Canan Budak, Amar Kılıç

13 Metrekare Art Collective aims to add alternative layers consisting of fragmentary narratives to the urban memory of Mardin, by documenting its hidden stories with the research and archive project Recording, started in 2018, and the subsequent Off The Record and On The Record. The collective carries out their projects by coming together with its members who are specialized in different fields such as photography, sculpture, philosophy and architecture, as well as various individuals, artists and artisans without a production platform, who live in and around Mardin.

This exhibition does not carry what’s in Mardin to İstanbul. It partially reveals sections from an organic, grassroots structure’s practice to the curious viewer. The exhibition brings together pieces from three projects that evoke the nature of the contact it established with the place it was born and continues to live, with Depo’s space.

Recording is a research project carried out by 13 Metrekare to trace the memory of the city. While two works selected from Recording focus on the stories of people and places that are invisible and on the sidelines unlike well-known histories, Off The Record brings us together with the memory of urban spaces through subjects that have deep marks on society and stayed generally hidden. On The Record, attempts to make material quotations from works produced through artist-artisan collaboration, with an immanent approach to the space.

13 Metrekare Art Collective would like to thank its team and participants who made all this work possible, and Spaces of Culture who provided funding for the projects in this exhibition.