Açık Masa İştirak Program 2010-2011

3 November 2010 – 30 June 2011

Açık Masa | İştirak* Program at Depo

Within the framework of the İştirak program, Açık Masa aims to bring people together in order to create a discussion and sharing platform at DEPO. The program beginning in November differs from previous Açık Masa events as it includes not only artists but also collectives, lecturers, sociologists, writers, critics and curators.

Besides the series of open roundtable meetings, artist Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz will make various interventions called “Yan Masa (The Next Table)” as an extension to each event. Yan Masa points out to a space where the artist intervenes with drawings, documents, performances etc. and is also open to contributions by guests.

You can follow announcements about future events and access related documents and the Açık Masa archive at www.acmasa.blogspot.com.
Açık Masa İştirak Program is organized by Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz in colloboration with Elmas Deniz.

*İştirak (Participation) 1. Participate, joining, participation. 2. Contribution, taking part, sharing, 3. Communion, partnership. According to another definition, “to share a risk”.

Thanks to Ferda Erdinç for proposing this title.

İştirak Program | 2010-2011

3 November 2010: Pelin Tan, Yaşar Adanalı
Their guests: Erdoğan Yıldız, Şaban Dayanan
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Spaces
| Social dynamics of the city and its relations with contemporary art production |

“Whether they are imposed by the state as in the case of Sulukule, Tarlabaşı, Fener-Balat Transformation Projects, or they take the form of a gentrification process led by capital as in the case of Cihangir, Çukurcuma, Asmalımescit, Tünel, Galata and Tophane, there is a structural violence inherent in urban transformation processes.” Yaşar Adanalı, quoted from his article titled “Tophane 2010” published in Birgün.

“Can locality be thought of as a practice of resistance outside the limited binary framework of globalization?” Pelin Tan, quoted from her contribution to the 2007 İstanbul Biennial Catalog.

3 December 2010: Erinç Seymen
His guests: Mehmet Tarhan, Göksun Yazıcı, İsmet Akça
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Heart
| Militarism, conscientious objection and war economy |

In this Açık Masa meeting the speakers will open to discussion the relationship of militarism with social gender codes and heteropatriarchy, the social and legal deadlocks of conscientious objection, and the manifestations of the reality of war in the language of heroism.

11 January 2011: Elmas Deniz
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Light
| A non conformist person |

I have realized that in Istanbul I don’t find many opportunities to talk about my works. Therefore I would like to use this meeting in this way. I would like to talk about some of my new works that deal with “poverty” or rather “fear of poverty,” about some ideas that led me to extend my practice as an artist to writing, curating and lately publishing, and about The Book of Rejections, the first book published by Merkezkaç publications I initiated.

2 February 2011: Selim Birsel
His Guests: Can Altay, Adnan Yıldız, Ali Akay
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Buffet
| The Jester, flaneur, the gardener and the cook |

… One morning when I woke up, there was no water running in the bathroom. I walked on the dusty dark red carpet runner, went down the hall. I passed through the ruins of the empty liquor bottles from the party last night, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, chicken bones, spilled fruit juices, dried coffee cups. I opened the window, reached out to smell the air and…

Selim Birsel 2010

5 March 2011: A77 Collective
Their Guests: Arzu Yayıntaş, Burak Delier
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Address
| The extinction process and its records |

Port
Poverty is the source of all wealth
finding their own desert

Development
to sublate conflicts (aufhebung)
first nature illusions over the second nature

Outlet
contemporary art activity: the general name given to operations whereby the records of the destruction process of capitalism through collective and affective forms of labor and its instruments are kept.

6 April 2011: Evrim Altuğ
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Sea
| ‘Critical Art’: Art Criticism |

3 May 2011: Dilek Winchester
Her Guests: Şemsa Özar, Zerrin İren Boynudelik, Esra Sarıgedik, Banu Cennetoğlu
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Door
| No address, but possibility! A parasite under the shadow of undocumented economy: Kayısı Kent A4 [Apricot City A4] |

Is it possible to imagine an art practice which can exist outside of the white cube without the pressure of the art market, especially when there is hardly any public funding available? Kayısı Kent A4, adopts the strategies of informal economy. It makes use of the anonymously designed street vending vehicles that provide laminating and photocopying services in the streets of İstanbul. These vehicles are not legal, yet they are ignored by the authorities most of the time. Kayısı Kent A4 is a fanzine/zine-like-thing. Each issue is made by a different artist and then copied and sold by these street vendors. Kayısı Kent A4 acts like a good natured parasite. It is initiated and run by Dilek Winchester. The introductory issue prepared by Winchester is followed by issues created by Evrim Kavcar, Burak Bedenlier, Nalan Yırtmaç, Delphine Rigaud and Stephan Kurr. Upcoming issues will be by xurban, Yasemin Özcan Kaya, Vaghram Aghasyan ve Jorge Mendez Blake.

16 June 2011: Nazli Gürlek
| About recent work |
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Circuit

Based in Istanbul, Nazlı Gürlek is an important figure who has extended her independent curatorial practice to other fields such as writing, editing and exhibition production and worked for both individual and collective projects. In her talk titled “about recent work”, she is going to share with the audiance-participants her experiences in these different fields.

30 June 2011: Esra Sarıgedik Öktem, Yavuz Parlar, Seçil Yersel, Özge Açıkkol
Moderator: Evrim Altuğ
| Looking After ‘My City’ |
Yan Masa (The Next Table): Open Book

Açık Masa* | About
Açık Masa is a sharing platform which has been initiated by artist Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz in 2000.

Açık Masa started with artist talks in 2000. A series of talks beginning with Hale Tenger where invited artists and their guests discussed their works were organized at Apartment Project.

In 2001, in collaboration with Apartman Project a visit was organized to İzmir in order to meet with artists based in the city. A roundtable meeting with young artists was held at Gümüş Bilardo Salonu in Güzelyalı İzmir.

In 2007 Açık Masa was invited to participate in the “Open Library” exhibition at Platform Garanti CAC. Açık Masa realized a series of talks with the participation of artists Esra Okyay, Ramazan Bayrakoğlu, Leyla Gediz, Canan and Hafriyat.
In 2008 Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz individually participated in “Work the Room” exhibition curated by Övül Durmuşoğlu. In the frame of the event she organized Açık Masa artist talks with Can Altay and Marjin Van Kreij.

This Year Açık Masa will organize a series of meetings at DEPO under the title “İştirak.”

*Open Table

www.acmasa.blogspot.com

AÇIK MASA
İŞTİRAK
Now, I feel a greater need for Open Table which has been going on since 2000 and has sometimes tried to find support for its short leg. I have been asking the following questions for a long time:
When and where do people speak the most?
Where do people mostly come together?
To whom do people tell their problems and to whom do they ask to give an account of them?
Are phones, internet, social networks enough to make people open?
Which speed do people try to catch up with?
Can collective mentality, labor, occupation, production, work descriptions be re-determined?
How can a collective life be possible?
According to the established Western art history, the trauma artists experienced during the First World War led to the explosion of the Dada attitude. Despite the fact that numerous social traumas in Turkey are stratifying and transforming into a war, why has there not been, can’t there be any explosion in art?
What kind of socialization causes a crowd to come together either in an open or closed area?
Is it possible to rediscover the autonomous field of art?

….

Is it possible to participate?
While I pursue these questions, I met other questions that fed them. Open Table opened with the intention of bringing together people who want to share their questions, talk and try to find answers. Particularly, when, after the Radical Aesthetics seminar organized on 1 July 2010 at DEPO within the scope of the European Social Forum 2010, Asena Günal said that there is a need to continue these discussions, Open Table’s location was determined. Elmas Deniz’s proposal to collaborate and to participate in the process provided a new source of light for Open Table. When we were talking about art and activism with Ferda Erdinç around the same time, her use of the word ‘iştirak’ gave Open Table its title. For me, meeting at DEPO has a special significance. Especially due to the location it has chosen, its accumulated memory DEPO is an open structure which aims to bring people together through exchange of culture.
I hope these meetings will open the way for us in the high-resolution magic of life.
Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz