The Monument Upside Down. The City Walls of Istanbul
The Monument Upside Down investigates local legends against the background of the urban regeneration process and forced evictions that are taking place around the historical Land Walls of Istanbul.
The Monument Upside Down is an outcome of a reseach based art project initiated by Sevgi Ortaç during 2009-2010.
The project consists of documentation, interviews, articles and artefacts produced though several meetings, conversations and invitations.
In response to the ongoing transformation of the city, The Monument Upside Down traces the The Land Walls of Istanbul today once more as a defense structure. The complex spatiality of the wall that renews itself constantly resists the top down monumental, ideological and political indications and initiations that follow. Today looking at the Land Walls once more as a defense structure brings us face to face with the spatialities that are practiced at the edges of the city and the narratives that empower them.
The Monument Upside Down is an attempt to accumulate different forms of knowledge production and narratives on spatial experiences in order to generate collaborative processes for an understanding of the transformation, appropriation, sharing and manifestation of habitable spaces.
http://www.zetfoundation.nl/IAF2010/sevgi.html