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The streets of Istanbul: Resistance and Poetry

Saturday Night Unlimited -


During the Gezi-protest of 2013, the streets and squares of Istanbul were places of resistance against authoritarian politics and ruthless market forces. It was an attempt to trigger change in Turkish politics.

Five years on, how does the young poet, essayist and critic Efe Murad see the situation in his country? And what does the literary map of Istanbul look like right now? Murad talks about the city, wanders through it and reads from his work, including poems from Kapital Öldürür!, written with his generational cohorts Sinan Özdemir and Ismail Aslan, which constitutes one of the most direct confrontations with the Turkey of recent years.

Poet Çaglar Köseoglu looks at Istanbul from The Netherlands thus enlarging the map. His poetry alters the history of the Republic of Turkey and the situation in The Netherlands towards something new, showing how violence, language and geography alternate.

During this short performance, Irina Baldini follows an improvised dance trajectory across the map of Istanbul across streets, along skyscrapers and luxury condominium towers; while moving, she reminisces about the search for clearings in a city where the state has taken over the public space.