From Oriental to the “Cool” City
Changing Imaginations of Istanbul, Cultural Production and the Production of Urban Space Emmy Noether Programm der DFG 2011–2016)
- Research Group Leader
- Dr. Derya Özkan
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Dr. Asli Duru
- Doctoral Researcher
- Dr. Vildan Seçkiner
- Student Assistant
- Claudia Theresa Stahl, B.A.
- Alumni (Student Assistent)
- Irene Hilden
Yeliz Soytemel, M.A.
Till Schmidt, B.A.
Projekt Description
The Research Project undertakes a historical investigation of the changing imaginations of Istanbul from the 19th to the 21st century, by conducting an in-depth analysis of three major discursive regimes characterizing the production of urban culture in three historical periods:
(1) Orientalism as the discourse of colonialism / imperialism in the 19th century, and the imagination of Istanbul as an Oriental city.
(2) National developmentalism imagining Istanbul as a Third World city of “crude urbanization”.
(3) Neoliberal globalism and the imagination of Istanbul as a global city.
The main argument is that the most recent imagination of “Cool Istanbul” claims to embrace and contain the earlier imaginations of Istanbul as an Oriental city, as a Third World city and as a global city, and that this marks a paradigm change in the imagination of Istanbul in the era of neoliberal globalism and Postfordist capitalism. The analysis is then juxtaposed with an analysis of the political economy of urbanism in effect in the city in these three periods. Understanding the changing politics of urbanism guiding the material production of urban space provides a solid ground for the analysis of changing cultural discourses on the city.
The Research Project is funded by the Emmy Noether Program of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), hosted by the Institute of European Ethnology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and run by a Research Group directed by the Emmy Noether Fellow Dr. Derya Özkan. Vildan Seçkiner (M.A.) worked from 2011 to 2014 as a Research Assistant and she is expected to defend her dissertation and receive her Ph.D. degree in early 2016. Aslı Duru (Ph.D.) worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow from 2012 to 2015. Yeliz Soytemel and Till Schmidt worked as Student Assistants respectively between 2012 and 2014. Irene Hilden worked as an intern for the exhibition project in 2014. Since November 2014 Claudia Stahl has been supporting the project as a Student Assistant.
Vildan Seçkiner's dissertation, tentatively titled “The Imagination of the Street. Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture (ECoC) Project and the Right to the City” will focus on the role played by the Istanbul 2010 ECoC project in the consolidation of the imagination of “Cool Istanbul“. This event had a substantial meaning for Turkey as a candidate for the European Union membership, fitting also in with the ‘global city’ image, which the local and central governments desired to attain for Istanbul since the 1990s. Hence, celebrating diversity in urban culture to achieve a “European identity“ – the primary goal of the ECoC program--was a priority in Istanbul 2010 ECoC event. To this end, organizers of the event attempted to include in the program various cultural activities in order to construct an image of a European city. While the historical richness and ethnic diversity of the city was highlighted on the one hand; on the other, contemporary arts and the image of an allegedly inclusive street culture became prominent. For instance, the Istanbul 2010 ECoC program attempted to co-opt the local festivals of the city and to formalize the culture of street arts, which was at any rate only a recent matter on the streets of Istanbul. Moreover, the changing policies of the local government before, during and after the ECoC project also revealed the conflicts between everyday life in the city and the imagination of the streets by the local and central governments. This dissertation will investigate the tensions between the imaginations of the street in this international city event and the political contents of everyday life on the streets of the city with reference to a critical approach to the concept of the right to the city. This will involve also a critical approach to neoliberal discourses of democracy that attempts to stabilize the interruptions created by autonomous acts of everyday resistance by way of state-market cooperation and by proposing a discourse of inclusiveness.
By Asli Duru
In Istanbul and elsewhere, food claims are related to the material, cultural, and economic centrality of food in organizing life across multiple scales and time frames (Goodman & DuPuis, 2002). As an urban origin movement, food activism in Istanbul is a productive venue in analyzing the impacts of neoliberal globalization on participation in cities; and identifying the struggles’ long term and immediate links to social justice in Turkey. The primary objective of the study is to examine key parameters of cultures, economies and politics of people, political action, and city by focusing on the intersectional dynamics at work in the mobilization(s) and claim(s) around food in Istanbul. Through a multiple-phase, iterative process of qualitative and visual research, the study interrogates the following questions: What are the main cultural, ideological, identity-based, and other threads informing food related struggles in Istanbul? What are the subjective and social motives shaping individuals’ commitment to food as a politically and/or ethically relevant category? Whether and how do struggles for food equity and justice reiterate links to gender, ethnic, environmental, and spatial justice, and urban participation? What role does and may urban form play in invigorating and deepening this interaction?
Özkan 2015 (Editor) Cool Istanbul. Urban Enclosures and Resistances. Transcript Verlag.
Özkan 2015 (Book Chapter) “From the Black Atlantic to Cool Istanbul. Why does coolness matter?” in DeryaÖzkan (Ed) Cool Istanbul. Urban Enclosures and Resistances. Transcript Verlag.
Özkan 2015 (Book Chapter) “Let them gentrify themselves! Space, Culture and Migration in Munich's Bahnhofsviertel” in Europäische Ethnologie in München. Ein kulturwissenschaftlicher Reader. (Ed) Irene Götz, Johannes Moser, Moritz Ege, Burkhart Lauterbach. Waxmann Verlag.
Özkan 2014 (Article) “Gecekondu chic? Informal settlements and urban poverty as cultural commodity” dérive. Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung. Volume 56. Vienna. (published online in Eurozine: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2014-07-11-ozkan-en.html).
Özkan 2012 (Article) “Gecekondu Chic? Kültürel meta olarak enformel şehir ve kent yoksulluğu” in Birikim, Issue 280-281, September 2012, pp. 155-160.
Özkan 2012 (Article) “Şark Şehrinden ‘Cool’ İstanbul'a. Değişen İstanbul Tahayyülleri” Birikim, Issue 277, May 2012, pp. 76-83.
Özkan 2011 (Book Chapter) “Neither critical nor affirmative: The Eigenlogik approach as Analytics for Analytics' Sake” in Jan Kemper & Anne Vogelpohl (Ed.s) Der 'eigenlogische' Forschungsansatz in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Stadtforschung. Rekonstruktion – Kritik – Alternativen. Westfälisches Dampfboot Verlag.
Özkan 2011 (Book review) Amy Mills. Streets of Memory: Landscape, Tolerance, and National Identity in Istanbul. London: The University of Georgia Press, 2010, in New Perspectives in Turkey Vol. 44 Spring 2011, pp.210-217.
Özkan 2011 (Article) “Spatial Practices of Oda Projesi” in On-Curating, Issue 11.
Özkan 2011 (Roundtable) “Art's Indecent Proposal: Collaboration. An Attempt to Think Collectively” in On-Curating (co-authors: Seçil Yersel, Özge Açıkkol, Güneş Savaş)
Özkan 2011 (Roundtable) “Sanatın Ahlâksız Teklifi: İşbirliği. Bir Kolektif Düşünme Denemesi” On-Curating (Seçil Yersel, Özge Açıkkol ve Güneş Savaş ile birlikte).
Özkan 2011 (Book Chapter) “Cool İstanbul: Neoliberal Küresel Şehirde Boş Zaman Mekân ve Pratikleri” in Volkan Aytar & Kübra Parmaksızoğlu (Ed.s) İstanbul'da Eğlence. Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi University Press.
Özkan 2010 (Book Chapter) “Whose city? The misuse value of space and the right to the city” My City: Istanbul. British Council.
Özkan 2010 (Article) “The Misuse Value of Space” Concrete Paper PLATFORM 3 Räume für zeitgenössische Kunst, Munich.
Özkan 2009 (Book Chapter) “A. Baba's Place” Berlin - Istanbul Ed. Annette Maechtel, Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH, BM Suma Contemporary, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien (co-author: Susanna Bosch).
Özkan 2009 (Book Review) Lars Frers & Lars Meier (Ed.s) Encountering Urban Places: visual and material performances in the city, Ashgate, 2007, in Urban Studies December 2009, Vol. 46/13.
Özkan 2007 (Article) “Değişen Istanbul Tahayyülleri: Çarpık Kentleşmeden ‘cool’ Istanbul’a” Istanbul Volume 58, January 2007.
Özkan 2007 (Article) “Yeniden Bak! Istanbul ve Imgeleri” Yeni Mimar.
Özkan 2006 (Book Chapter) “Antinomy Perfected: Everyday Life and Utopia in Situationist Politics of Space” in Nowhere Somewhere: Writing, Space and the Construction of Utopia. Ed. Jose Eduardo Reis & Jorge Bastos de Silva, University of Porto Press.
Özkan 2005 (Article) “Oda Projesi Yeni Mekanlar Üretiyor” Art Review - 2 Yılda 1, Istanbul Biennial, October 2005.
Özkan 2005 (Article) “Consumer Citizenship, Nationalism and Neoliberal Globalization in Turkey: The Advertising Launch of Cola Turka” Advertising and Society Review. Volume 6/3, September 2005. Co-author: Robert J. Foster (first author: Özkan).
Özkan 2001 (Book Review) Bahattin Öztuncay Padişah Hazretlerinin Fotoğrafçısı: Vasilaki Kargopulo, Toplumsal Tarih Volume 91, July 2001.
Özkan 1999 (Conference Proceeding) “Universal and National Limits of Architecture: The Case of Turkey” in Architecture of the 21st century, XX UIA Congress Beijing 1999 Academic Treatises, Volume 2. (Co-author: Yonca Hürol Al).
Özkan 1999 (Editorial) “Şehrin Zihinsel Haritasının Fotoğrafı Çekilebilir mi?” (Editorial for the Special Issue “Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul”) Istanbul Volume 29, April 1999.
Özkan 1998 (Editor) Yetmişbeş Yılda Değişen Yaşam Değişen Insan: Cumhuriyet Modaları Tarih Vakfi (Co-editor: Oya Baydar).
Sich wandelnde Vorstellungen von Istanbul
Neue Emmy-Noether-Gruppe an der LMU
München, 04.08.2011
Den Imagewandel Istanbuls in der Zeit vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert untersucht eine neue Emmy-Noether-Nachwuchsgruppe, die an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München eingerichtet wird. Unter der Leitung von Dr. Derya Özkan wird die am Institut für Volkskunde/Europäische Ethnologie untergebrachte Gruppe zum Thema „Von der orientalischen zur „coolen“ Stadt. Sich wandelnde Vorstellungen von Istanbul, Kulturelle Produktion und die Produktion des Raumes“ forschen. Das Emmy-Noether-Programm der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) ermöglicht es besonders herausragenden Nachwuchswissenschaftlern, sich für eine wissenschaftliche Leitungsaufgabe vorzubereiten.
Changing imaginations of Istanbul
New Emmy Noether Group at LMU
Munich, 4 August 2011
A new Emmy Noether Research Group at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München will work on a project entitled “From the Oriental to the “Cool” City. Changing Imaginations of Istanbul, Cultural Production and the Production of Urban Space.” This is the second Research Group funded by the Emmy Noether Program in the field of Humanities at LMU. The Research Group will be led by Dr. Derya Özkan and hosted by the Institute of European Ethnology. The Emmy Noether Program is funded by the German Research Foundation and is designed to support talented young postdoctoral researchers to gain the qualifications necessary for an academic career.
http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2011/2011_oezkan.html
Bilder vom Bosporus
Istanbul ist die Stadt der Stunde. Wie kaum eine andere Metropole strahlt sie einen coolen Charme des Unfertigen aus. Derya Özkan untersucht, was ihr Image prägt und sie plötzlich so hip erscheinen lässt.
Von Martin Thurau
Nummer 1 + 2 / 2011 Einsichten – Das Forschungsmagazin, pp. 17-21.
http://www.uni-muenchen.de/aktuelles/publikationen/einsichten/einsichten_aktuell/bilder_1_2_11.pdf
Imagewechsel. "Cool Istanbul" als Forschungsprojekt
Der Image-Wechsel von Istanbul in den letzten Jahrzehnten ist gravierend: Die einst orientalische und arme Stadt wird als eine der coolsten Metropolen des 21. Jahrhunderts gefeiert.
Autor: Isabelle Hartmann
Stand: 30.10.2011
http://www.br.de/radio/b5-aktuell/sendungen/interkulturelles-magazin/istanbul-imagewechsel100.html
“Şark Şehrinden 'Cool' İstanbul'a. Değişen İstanbul Tahayyülleri”
TRT Türkiye’nin Sesi Radyosu, Yeryüzü Manzaraları programı, 11 Ekim 2011, 17.10.
http://www.trt.net.tr/medya1/ses/2011/10/11/83a7dd47-632a-45a9-9f86-560faafc517e.mp3
Şark'tan Cool İstanbul'a
15 Ağustos 2011, Pazartesi / BAYRAM AYDIN, MÜNİH
http://eurozaman.com/euro/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=56469
Behind the scenes of the cool city
‘On 7th and 8th of November, Salt Galata in Istanbul hosted a brilliant two day workshop titled ‘Cool Istanbul: Urban Enclosures and Resistances.’ The workshop was initiated as part of a research project based in the Institute of European Ethnology in University of Munich…’
Read full article on Exhibition Critique:
http://www.exhibitioncritique.com/2013/11/18/behind-the-scenes-of-the-cool-city/
Branding the ‘Istanbul cool’
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News, 6/28/2010
SEMINAR SERIES:
SPACES IN COMMON, April 16th – June 11th 2016, Istanbul
Organizers: Güldem Baykal Büyüksaraç (Istanbul University), Derya Özkan (LMU University of Munich)
One vast reservoir of common wealth is the metropolis itself. The formation of modern cities, as urban and architectural historians explain, was closely linked to the development of industrial capital. The geographical concentration of workers, the proximity of resources and other industries, communication and transport systems, and the other characteristics of urban life are necessary elements for industrial production. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the growth of cities and the qualities of urban space were determined by the industrial factory, its needs, rhythms, and forms of social organization. Today we are witnessing a shift, however, from the industrial to the biopolitical metropolis. And in the biopolitical economy, there is an increasingly intense and direct relation between the production process and the common that constitutes the city. The city, of course, is not just a built environment consisting of buildings and streets and subways and parks and waste systems and communications cables but also a living dynamic of cultural practices, intellectual circuits, affective networks, and social institutions. These elements of the common contained in the city are not only the prerequisite for biopolitical production but also its result; the city is the source of the common and the receptacle into which it flows.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth (2011: 153-4)
This seminar series has been designed as a joint reflection process about the city, with a particular focus on the collectively produced and reproduced commons that sustain urban inhabitants’ livelihoods, affirming their communal instincts. We embrace the concept of “urban commons” for it offers an imagination of the city marked by socio-spatial relations and practices, and allows us to think beyond the public-private and state-market dichotomies. Viewed as such, urban space is where cultures of commoning emerge through its active and creative residents’ quotidian practices, be they work, reproductive labor, or leisure and festivity. It is these practices that make our spaces in common.
Urban common spaces are constantly subject to enclosure for capitalist profit. As a generative force for accumulation, enclosure entails dispossession in various forms: expropriation, evacuation, denying public access to a once common space, etcetera. What equally deserves consideration is cultural enclosures that work to commodify the complex systems of local knowledge and to capitalize (on) collective experiences of meaning-making, a subject that has so far been less debated and undertheorized.
Keeping such processes in mind to re-examine, we would like to discuss the emerging practices of commoning in the city mainly through the case of Istanbul. We treasure these practices, for they imply a radical will to remake not only our city but also ourselves by way of reorganizing our living spaces, redefining forms of production and labor, developing new means of livelihood, and in turn cultivating a new ethos to teach us every day that we all inhabit a common ‘life-world’.
Urban commons are emancipatory to the extent that they challenge capitalist social relationships. It is particularly this aspect of urban commons, and of the commoning practices therein, that we intend to explore throughout these seminars. We would like to dwell on achievements as well as incomplete or conflicting processes and incompatibilities. Can the commons inform the way we imagine an emancipatory future in urban life? What can we learn from comparable practices happening elsewhere in the world? Are there any alternative conceptions to better capture the significance of commoning practices for urban culture? What are the ways for incorporating different sensibilities and perspectives (feminist perspective in particular) into our understanding of urban commons?
Spaces in Common, composed of six bi-weekly seminar talks that will run from April 16th to June 11th, 2016, has been planned as part of the DFG Emmy Noether Research Project, ‘Cool Istanbul: From Oriental to the Cool’, hosted by the University of Munich.
We have also organized four panels under the title of The Practices of Commoning in Istanbul (on April 30th at Studio-X İstanbul and on May 14th at SALT Galata), with parallel sub-themes to those of the seminar talks. With these panels, we hope to inquire into the possibilities of dialogue and solidarity between activists and theorists, as well as among the local initiatives themselves. It is our intention here to examine to what extent and in what ways the commons theory explains actual experiences of commoning in Istanbul on the one hand, and to search for ways of imagining new forms of production, consumption, exchange, and socialization, on the other.
Spaces in Common will be hosted by Ariel Art Center, SALT Galata, and Studio-X Istanbul.
SEMINARS (in English)
Saturday, April 16, 11:00-13:00, STUDIO-X
Commoning the City: The Right to not be Excluded
Nicholas Blomley
Friday, April 29, 18:00-21:00, STUDIO-X
Production in Common
Massimo de Angelis
Saturday, April 30, 16-18:00, STUDIO-X
The Challenges and Possibilities of Urban Horticulture
Elke Krasny
Saturday, May 14, 17-20:00, SALT Galata
Affective Labour in the City: From Dispossession to Commoning
Emma Dowling
Saturday, May 28, 17-19:00, ARIEL Sanat
Beyond the Creative City: Art, Politics and Public Life in the City of the 21st Century
Pascal Gielen
(followed by book launch starting at 19:00)
Saturday, June 11, 17-20:00, SALT Galata
Collective Production, Collective Ownership
Peter Linebaugh
PANELS: Practices of Commoning in Istanbul (in Turkish)
Saturday, April 30, STUDIO-X
11-13:00
Labor and Production in Solidarity
14-16:00
Horticulture, Food and Solidarity
Saturday, May 14, SALT Galata
11-13:00
Domestic and Affective Labor
13:30-15:30
Urban Common Property
VENUES
ARIEL SANAT
Maçka Caddesi 24, Narmanlı Apt. Kat: 2, Nişantaşı 34367 Istanbul
STUDIO-X
Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi 35A, Beyoğlu 34427 Istanbul
SALT Galata
Bankalar Caddesi 11, Beyoğlu 34420 Istanbul
Symposium: States of Mind and the City: Place and Wellbeing
15-17 October 2014
Istanbul Studies Centre, Kadir Has University, Istanbul
Exhibition: "Call it Cool" in three chapters
CALL IT COOL was an art and research project that explored the phenomenon of the “Cool City” between Istanbul and Munich. Spanning over time and space, the project looked at the concept of cool from pop-historical, cultural and artistic perspectives between 2013 and 2014 in three chapters:
Chapter 1: Istanbul in Munich
19 July 2013
WORKSHOP
@Münchner Stadtmuseum
FILM SCREENING of e.g. “Building Bridges – Munich’s Sound of Istanbul”
@STRØM Club Munich
Chapter 2: Cool Walks & Cooltails
17 May 2014
Performances in collaboration with "Klasse Ingold" of Academy of the Fine Arts, Munich
@MaximiliansForum Munich
Chapter 3: Cool Istanbul
30 May -13 June 2014
Exhibition “The Free Market Road Show Istanbul” & Book Launch “The Rebirth of the Turkish Delight”
PLATFORM Munich
BTTP Network
The Free Market Road Show Istanbul displays cool visions of liberty and marketing of “Europe’s hippest City”. Since 2006 Manuela Unverdorben and Ralf Homann’s The Better Think Tank Project (BTTP) has been a platform for progressive projects dealing with the think tank phenomenon, its aesthetics and knowledge production.
The book “The Rebirth of the Turkish Delight: Cool Istanbul” is a non-linear search through the imaginations of Istanbul in international print media. The Istanbul-based artist Seçil Yersel is looking for a possible narrative of the cool city.
Flyer Chapter 3 (PDF, 475 KB)
Pictures Chapter 3 (PDF, 1.714 KB)
Conference: Cool Istanbul. Urban Enclosures and Resistances
7-8 November 2013
SALT Galata, Istanbul
Workshop: Imaginations of the street European Capital of Culture events and the right to the city
2-4 May 2012
Center for Advanced Studies (CAS), Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)