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Open Table
01/12/2012 @ 08:00 - 08/06/2013 @ 17:00
1 December 2012 – 14 May 2013
Open Table 2012-13 Program
DEPO started hosting the monthly discussion program ‘Open Table’ initiated by Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz in 2010. Some of the issues focused in the first two years of the program in the discussions between invited artists, curators, collectives, critics and social scientists are: the role of art in gentrification, art criticism, art in public space, the practice of curatorship, censorship in the arts, art and capital, art and feminism and art education. The recordings of the past two year’s discussions are available as DVDs at DEPO.
This year Open Table İştirak Program invites Turgut Tarhanlı, Erdoğan Yıldız, Neşe Ozan, Kamusal Sanat Laboratuvarı, Sevil Tunaboylu, Zeyno Pekünlü, Eda Gecikmez, Yasemin Özcan, Elif Kamışlı, Tony Ventura and Yaygara.
This year Mürüvvet Türkyılmaz will continue to present the ‘Next Table’ which will function in different ways and is designing it as a ‘Transparent Table’ that will host an exhibition which will be on display until the next discussion.
www.acmasa.blogspot.com
1 December 2012, Saturday, 18.30
Rights activism and art
A discussion on tactic and strategy in activism
Turgut Tarhanlı
İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Law and Human Rights Law Research Center
The essence of rights activism is agency for the recognition, protection or improvement of rights. This foregrounds creativity. But creativity to what end and with which tools? These fundamental questions lead to other questions that can be described as the anatomy of activism. These are actually questions that will make possible to begin to know, discover and learn this process. And other questions follow like ‘recognizing who’ and ‘discovering what.’ Consequently what needs to be done is discussing these questions in the framework of activism for freedom of artistic expression.
Friday, 21 December 2012, 18.30
Women’s Solidarist Production: Kader Kısmet Atölyesi
Neşe Ozan
Her guest: İlhan Sayın
Kader Kısmet Atölyesi is a solidarity group doing collaborative handwork at home as a means of livelihood. The group was founded by women from Sulukule whose lives have been affected by the destruction in the neighborhood and activists who are in solidarity with them. Group members are learning textile printing techniques and working together to overcome the difficulties in their new life conditions. In this group, everybody supports and teaches each other. The beauty of working together makes everybody feel good… Kader Kısmet Atölyesi continues on its path as a local experience that seeks the means of standing up on one’s feet in solidarity.
Cultural Agencies
Erdoğan Yıldız
His guests: Ece Sarıyüz, Fevzican Abacıoğlu
Since 2004, Gülsuyu Gülensu neighborhoods in Maltepe have worked with various organizations dealing with the process of “Urban Transformation” including universities, the local municipality, activist groups and platforms. The work carried out by “Cultural Agencies” was perhaps the most original among these. Starting off with the question “how does culture express itself in a neighborhood in the periphery,” their work in a space in the neighborhood for almost two years involved creative architecture, art performances, interviews and talks. It seems that this work showed that different forms of “Barricades” as tools to defend neighborhoods are possible.
Saturday, 26 January 2013, 16.30
Kamusal Sanat Laboratuvarı (Public Art Lab)
Kamusal Sanat Laboratuvarı was designed as a tunnel dug in between the field of art and the field of politics. It was founded not as an artists’ organization, but as a collective experimental field open to everybody who wants to produce “concrete thoughts” on how we can make space, time, working conditions, human relations and life more humane. It is an independent, anti-hierarchical structure that takes its decisions in weekly meetings that are open to the participation of all. In collaboration with social movements, unions and professional organizations, it produces both reflex actions and long-lasting activities.
Kamusal Sanat Laboratuvarı started its actions with a performance during the Istanbul Biennial in July 2011. The laboratory workers created replicas of the flyers prepared and circulated by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) to promote the 12th International Istanbul Biennial and distributed them during the Biennial opening. When the surface of the replica flyers were scratched, a letter exposing the relationships between the Koç Family, the sponsor of the Biennial, and the 12 September 1980 military coup was revealed. Today, the Lab’s performances aiming to question and discuss the socioeconomic consequences of how the art institution operates are followed by efforts to weave a guerilla image production web.
Kamusal Sanat Laboratuvarı will participate at Open Table to discuss the possibilities of creating not only reactionary but also possibly constructive cultural political tools and spaces.
Wednesday, 27 February 2013, 18:30
Artist Talk: Eda Gecikmez, Zeyno Pekünlü, Sevil Tunaboylu
tags: art, woman, space, censorship, action, organization, collectivity
New guests of Open Table, Eda Gecikmez, Zeyno Pekünlü and Sevil Tunaboylu often stood side by side at instances of collaboration or through long term organizational initiatives, both with their artistic practices and in working groups which they carried out together. The paths of this alignment which was formed around issues engaging them as artists and individuals, often coincided on various social opposition areas, from the feminist movement to artists’ rights, censorship and to the movements against urban transformation.
On this occasion at Open Table, they will come together to share and discuss their individual works; they will be talking about how their different practices, agencies and experiences shape their individual artistic productions.
27 Mart Çarşamba, 18:30
Sanatçı Konuşması: Yasemin Özcan
Davetlisi: Ceren Özselçuk
Yasemin Özcan, Transfer Ziyareti (2007), üçyüzbir (2009), Koş (2010) ve Hep konsoloslukta evlenilecek değil ya! (2012) işleri bağlamında son dönem pratiğini paylaşacak.
14 May Tuesday, 18:30
Elif Kamışlı – Gallery-Artist Relationship: Different Models
Tony Ventura – Collecting, Art, Fine Art
Gallery-Artist Relationship: Different models
Remembering different gallery models, even if they are not very present around us, may provide a good opportunity to artists for strengthening their position in the transition process we are going through. Many galleries in Europe and the States, the heart of the contemporary art field, support their artists’ production, promote their work internationally, increase their visibility and help them to focus on their artistic work with curatorial support. Those galleries become stronger with their artists. It is a fact that the artists’ presence is much more important in this kind of relationship, in which both sides give value to one another; because without the artists, a space is nothing but empty walls