HAFRİYAT KARAKÖY

march 2007 - april 2008

general coordinator

Hafriyat is a common platform and field of thought formed by a group of Turkish artists who have been organizing exhibitions for 10 years. It is also an effort to slip free from the tight membrane of the rigid, sterile, conservative commercial and academic art environment of the art dealer, artist, collector and viewer. Hafriyat turns its gaze to and empathizes with the discarded, the rejected, the abandoned of everyday life which has become irrelevant because it is seen everyday or because it has genuinely been othered. Hafriyat describes this gaze as a look at the street and subculture. Hafriyat has also developed the concept of the ecology of the image, based on definitions such as 'the urban gaze' and 'becoming an urban dweller'.

Hafriyat Karakoy / The Realm of Diverse Arts

Hafriyat Karakoy is a multi-purpose space looking out on to one of Karaköy's busiest streets. Hafriyat Karaköy will host activities such as exhibitions, workshops, interviews, film screenings and archives, and will also strive to expand its activities beyond these. It aims to create an independent non-profit art environment where artists come together and new projects are both produced and practiced through the sharing of artistic and cultural experiences.

Hafriyat Karaköy founders: Antonio Cosentino, Banu Birecikligil, Ceren Oykut, Charlie, Extramucadele, Eyup Oz, Fulya Cetin, Hakan Gursoytrak, Inci Furni, Irfan Onurmen, Murat Akagunduz, Mustafa Pancar, Nalan Yırtmac, Nazım Dikbas, Neriman Polat, Tan Cemal Genc

1. Müdahale - Intervention

Collective exhibition on street art

2. Alternatif Seçim Afişleri - Alternative Election Posters

Collective poster exhibition of national elections

3. Dünyayı Yesen Doymazsın - Your eyes are bigger than your stomach

Hafriyat Participation to the 10th Istanbul Biennial

An exhibition with the participation of 14 Hafriyat members, over three floors, with a subject for each floor in relation with each other.

Various materials, various dimensions, various sounds.

Coordinator: Deniz Erbaş.

Participants: Antonio Cosentino, Hakan Gürsoytrak, İrfan Önürmen, Tan Cemal Genç, Banu Birecikligil, Nalan Yırtmaç, Fulya Çetin, İnci Furni, Neriman Polat, Extramücadele, Juan Botella Lucas, Mustafa Pancar, Nazım Dikbaş, Atılkunst.

The initial Hafriyat project based on questioning social relations of consumption was developed by a critical discussion on the potential role of optimism in the age of global war. A week-long seminar with the participation of the majority of artists approached the following question from various perspectives: What does the transformation of power structures both on a global and local scale correspond to in terms of artistic production?

Each of the three floors of the Hafriyat Karaköy space were decided to correspond to three concepts. The trinity of concepts took on many faces. Three verbs, forgetting (basement), to be persuaded (entrance floor) and to wait (mezzanine); the three levels of a dinner bucket with cacık/cucumber, garlic, yoghurt (basement), beans and rice (entrance floor) and kemalpaşa desert (mezzanine) in its containers; or the more conventional trinity of the past as memory (basement), the contemporary world of capitalism we live in (entrance floor) and the imagined future (mezzanine).

The resulting project including 14 artists was both a response to all of these conceptual frameworks, and a recognition that any framework is bound to merge, melt into and meet with others.

4. Allah Korkusu - Fear of God

Collective Poster Exhibition of Fear

5. Münferit - An Isolated Event

The group, which formed under the name January 19 Collective in reference to the date we lost Hrant, sensed the demands of a past whose voice had been suppressed, and worked for months, from within a darkened history, against a universe of trouble which dimmed the day and drew the hope out of the future, with an effort to expand the field of intersection between art, the political field, memory and history and to render artificial discriminations invalid. Our work formed around a past of 25-30 years. And the common source of pain was just about evident. People are becoming the target of a type of violence which comes from different sources in all corners of the country, but is shaped around the same logic. A chain of deaths, murders or forced disappearances is used as a means of keeping society under control by violence, all described as “isolated” cases. The force that has accumulated as January 19 believes that the present has been darkened enough (do not forget the efforts to cover up evidence) and that the truth, constantly relegated to the designation of being “isolated,” must be opened to discussion.

The violence applied to sections of society which cannot enter the main and holy body of power and are constantly excluded, the Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, transvestites, gays, lesbians, the unemployed, the immigrants, the asylum seekers, the Africans or just anyone; and all murders left unresolved, as a result of the violence applied by a variety of political organizations which form micro mechanisms of power, have been treated at an equal distance within the framework of this event. We find it important to react to violence aimed at civil life wherever it comes from. What is important is to stay stop! and react to this violence wherever it may come from.

With this event, the contemporary artists and writers who form the January 19 Collective, which has been meeting regularly for a year, meticulously investigated the records of these past murders which have been covered up, and faced their own personal memories. We refrained from turning the event into a rigid memorial exhibition. The act of commemoration was imagined as a stance, an action. Today, contemporary art is being refined as a cultural field to decorate Turkey’s shop window facing the outside world. We want to reiterate that the radical intervention of contemporary art to the present and the social is still possible.