SEAS Facebook diary from Istanbul
by Adam Jeanes, Project Director
These words were sent as mails to all members of the SEAS-group on Facebook. Join us on Facebook to receive similar mails from the events around the North Sea.
Monday 16 March: SEAS Istanbul - 5 days to go...
Dear Friends
Our truck carrying the sets, equipment, banners and SEAS flags has already arrived in Istanbul - ahead of schedule!- and the Intercult team arrive tomorrow. Our first job is to unpack the banners and flags and to try and make ourselves visible in the enormous city.
Meanwhile a hundred a details are being pinned down, although it sometimes feels like we are trying to nail jelly to a wall. Everyone is very tired but hoping for the energy that will come from being in one of the great cities of the world. Much of our work will be presented on the streets, including the lanes around DEPO and on Istiklal, probably the busiest street in Europe! And by the mouth of the Golden Horn at Istanbul Modern where you can watch the huge fleets of tankers and cargo vessels riding at anchor, waiting to load or unload. For centuries traders have brought their wares to Istanbul - and I suppose we are no different from them.
We are also watching the weather forecast carefully - "chance of rain" it says. Let us hope that there will also be "chance of some public art."
SEAS Istanbul is the first event of the European Capital of Culture Istanbul 2010, and we are very honoured to be their vanguards. Our programme is on the website www.seas.se ...
Welcome to Istanbul...
Wednesday 18 March: Subject: Water Water Everywhere...
We have started work. The two teams – Intercult and Istanbul 2010 – after months of preparations back and forth - at last sat together round the same table. People who had become close collaborators and even friends by email and sms at last met each other face to face. As often happens in these situations, there was a brief series of happy greetings and then everybody was talking practical matters. At some points, as many as six conversations were going on simultaneously. There is a definite productive energy. The SEAS flyers and posters are being distributed to cafes and cultural places (they look great). Messages are whizzing back and forth through facebook. The opening at Otto Santral is looking popular. People we meet tell us that they are interested and excited. Press Releases are being composed and interviews are being arranged... Our van is being unloaded tonight and gradually we are fixing all our little problems one by one.
And we have made our first visit to DEPO, which will be the "SEAS Centre”, climbing down and then up the steep slope of Kumbaraci that rises up to the main street Istiklal. At least we will leave Istanbul physically more fit than we arrived! But you need to take care. Pedestrians and cars share the narrow streets of Beyoglu. There is not much difference between sidewalk and road. But both the drivers and the walkers seem to live in harmony with each other – there is little horn-blowing or bad manners when they get in each other’s way. Most impressive are the ubiquitous yellow taxicabs that weave through the crowds in the winding streets: nothing seems to delay them.
The weather is still on our minds. This morning we woke up to a cool sunny day and the sound of sea birds. Tonight a chilly rain is falling. Both remind you that Istanbul is a true sea city, like San Francisco or Stockholm, where the weather is made not over the land but over the water. And appropriately Istanbul is currently hosting the Sixth World Water Forum. The world has come to Istanbul to talk about the importance of water security. Black/North SEAS has arrived in the right harbour at just the right moment...
Saturday 21 March Subject: SEAS Istanbul Opens
Thursday it rained. The steep streets of Beyoglu were running like streams. The street at the bottom of the hill where the water collects - that is, just outside our SEAS Centre at DEPO – was like a small river. We will have to buy the Fantomats umbrellas.
Our technical team is starting to build things – or rather describe how they will build things. This is good and I always listen with interest. Mostly they discuss who has “the keys”, do they have ropes, the “Bulgarian van”, the “Swedish van”, and where to park them, how long things are, why something should be shorter, where to get black cloth, how to make somewhere dark, how to make somewhere else bright: come back a little later and there it is. It’s like a magic spell. If you can describe it, it will happen.
Friday was bright and pleasant. The brochure has arrived and our posters are on Istiklal. Nedyalko and the advance guard for Suitcases have arrived – they are delighted to be on such a busy, major street. They will perform even if it is raining. At the offices of Istanbul 2010 we are handed all the permission documents and licences we need. So we are ready...
Then to Otto Santral, our launch which is full and the Baba Zula concert who rock the house. We decide that the lead singer and “main man” is really Frank Zappa reincarnated. During the evening more artists arrive, lots of greetings and we settle at one large table – but it’s not long before people are up and dancing. Friday in Istanbul is a party night.
Monday 23 March: Rain Rain Go Away – Come Again Another Day
Sunshine followed by rain, followed by sunshine...followed by HEAVY rain. Let’s not get too concerned – the internet keeps reassuring us that it WILL get better. OK. We have to trust the global information superhighway or we will all became bitter conspiracy theorists...
Meanwhile Borderline opened the visual arts programme at DEPO yesterday: three prayers, one Muslim (recorded here in Istanbul), one Jewish and one Christian, created and designed by Siri Hermansen was played indoors. After the three religions of the book have expressed their three faiths, there is a long, thoughtful silence from the audience before they applaud.
Upstairs is an excellent presentation of Anne Lise Stenseth’s Kiss and Waste Project, now with her new video portrait made in Istanbul. And around the DEPO are six Fantomats, wearing umbrellas and scarves to keep them warm and dry. The seventh Fantomat is lucky – he or she (it has never been clear if they have a gender) has a comfortable, secret home away from the rain at the back of DEPO where two people at a time can visit and talk with him/her. I wonder if the other Fantomats are envious – they have to stand in the street, but their compensation is all the attention they get from the local children.
Behind the scenes it is not as interesting of course. However we have moments of excitement. Our inkjet printer works, but we forgot to bring paper. Now we have bought the paper, we realise that we did not bring a stapler. Why? Because there was only two in the office at Intercult when we left home and they needed them: such is the reality of an international arts organisation. Sometimes the most insignificant things cause the biggest disruption. Tomorrow EU funding will be invested wisely in a number of stationery items....
More artists and guests have arrived – evenings are spent talking and catching up. Memories of the tour in Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania are being shared. Istanbul is adding yet another layer of stories which we will probably retell in five months’ time when we start the North Sea tour in Denmark and Sweden. There is also important “live market research” being exchanged over meals - SEAS people are investigating the local bars, clubs and cafes and are reporting back to each other on which ones are the best or most hip. One guide to quality is the number of floors you have to walk up to find the place – ones on the sixth or seventh floors seem to offer the most. The best so far (according to reports) has a triangular elevator to save on space.
Tuesday 24 March: ENJOY IT
This morning the SUN WAS SHINING. In the hotel Bristol lobby, the cast of Suitcases were rehearsing their songs. Later tonight they will be broadcast on CNN Turkish Television. The Turkish newspapers are also reporting us: "Enjoy it.." says HÜRR?YET
Waiting... premiered at Talimhane Tiyatrosu last night, greeted with great applause from an audience of 250 who squeezed into the seats, cushions and benches - some lying down, some standing up. It has been nearly two and half years since we first involved Mahir Gunsiray and Theatre Oyunevi in the project and brought them with us on our travels. There have been many changes of ideas and new thoughts as they went through the SEAS process and last night we saw the result.
Three migrants arrive in Europe and tell their own stories through song, dance, words and games in Turkish, Kurdish and some English. Sometimes comic, sometimes melancholic – there are references (may be) to Waiting for Godot, but above all it is expressing a common human experience that in order to “belong” somewhere you need to be “greeted”. The ending is ambiguous: the three travellers pack up things and leave – are they going “home”? Where is home?
Wunderbaum’s workshop is underway – apparently they have a group of medical students who take drama as part of their education: some of us are making cheeky comments about “not wanting a surgeon who had been trained by Wunderbaum...” and so on.
And also yesterday and today two sessions of CityScape Cafe: SEAS artists in dialogue – discussing “Art in Public Space” (yesterday) and “Perfect Place” (today) - great insights and reflections on the SEAS process: we will publish some transcripts of the talks on the SEAS Facebook after Istanbul.
Thursday 26 March: Looking for Gold on the Streets of Istanbul
Sorelle, an electro-acoustic opera, premiered at Ses Tiyatrosu last night – and had an excellent second performance tonight – without doubt the best performance of this work by Teater Giljotin so far. This piece was created in a previous SEAS project (Baltic-Adriatic) when Rikard Borggård the composer, visited Montenegro and heard the story of three sisters (the “sorelle”) who fell in love with the same sea captain. Each swore to be faithful to him and he sailed away, never to return. They waited, and waited and waited, watching for his ship which never comes...it is a kind of Madam Butterfly multiplied by three.
Sorelle has returned to SEAS, not only because it is a great piece of music theatre, it is coincidentally a Bulgarian-Swedish collaboration between Giljotin in Stockholm, a set designed by a Bulgarian scenographer and one of the sisters played by Bulgarian-Swedish dancer Tatyana Borggård. The singers, Anna Karin von Malmborg and Filippa Maurin, are also excellent. Despite being a short, compact piece, it has all the elements you could ever want in a grand opera – big arias, drama, jealousy, passion, dance, a revolving set and a rich score. At the second performance there was enthusiastic applause – you can see some of the images from the show (and others) in the photo album on the SEAS Facebook.
It is strange that we have “themes” running through our projects – characters who are waiting (Mahir Gunsiray’s “Waiting...”and Sorelle itself), electro-acoustic opera (Sweet Dreams and Sorelle), migration/arrival (Suitcases and Waiting...)
Speaking of which - Suitcases made its first performance on the streets today: art in the public space - what SEAS is truly about. A crowd quickly gathered and followed the group of actors as they made their way up Istiklal, pushing their strange machine. One of the passing locals stopped and told us they “know” what the contraption is really for – it’s obviously a Bulgarian gold-prospecting machine. You put river water in it and filter out the precious metal from the dirt with the big pan suspended inside. This afternoon, when it was parked by the giant suitcase-museum, it also became a handy display-system for our flyers...so art can also be "useful" after all...
We are inviting the local people to bring their own personal souvenirs and items to add to the collection in the museum.
Tonight I bought a five lira umbrella running to the Sorelle performance, because - guess what? – it’s raining. In fact it was a thunderstorm. But even the weather doesn’t dampen the atmosphere: nearly everyone is here now, some 100 artists, partners and guests, and despite all the festival mayhem, the hasty mobile phone calls, sms-ing, quick decisions, conversations interrupted by urgent problems, hurried meetings, hurried meals – everyone is kind of relaxed, glad to be here, and sorry when they have to leave.
Friday 27 March: Theoretical Coffee
The Ukrainian show Sweet Dreams premiered at Talimhane Tiyatrosu last night. It is based on the scene in Shakespeare’s Richard III before the battle of Bosworth Field when Richard is visited by all the people he has murdered. Dmytro Bogomazov, the director, describes this scene as the moment Richard becomes human. The four weird and quite scary ghosts creep into the half-lit room and sing, whisper and scream at him.
Of all our works it is the most demanding on the audience, but the big crowd watched and listened intently and applauded at the end. Only one or two shuffled in their seats or left. The music, which is created only from the voices of the actors sampled live on stage, has hints of Ligeti in it. The last time I saw it, it was in Bogomazov’s own theatre in Kiev with a group of school students. An image of his theatre, Vilna Scena, is projected on to the back wall at Talimhane and onto the actors bodies, so the production carries with it an image of the room it was invented in. A nice touch.
The show has humour as well. It’s the ironic Ukrainian sense of humour which I remember from Odessa in May. An example of this is that the rather weak breakfast coffee at the hotel has been described by the Ukrianians as “theoretical coffee”.
All the international guests are now here – there was a slightly chaotic logistical operation to get everyone from the theatre to the restaurant but the evening passed in noisy and relaxed conversation. We start again this morning with a meeting of the EU partners and CityScape at SantralIstanbul. I am finishing my theoretical coffee now and rushing out to find taxis...
Saturday 28 March: Last Tango in Istanbul
Yesterday morning the EU grant partners met to plan the North Sea tour – at the end of the session we indeed had a plan – now we know what the SEAS events in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Britain look like.
Then we held the opening session of CityScape "Arts and Urban Reinvention" - Karl Schlögel, the key note speaker, described Istanbul in the late twentieth century and the Cold War period as a great city on the periphery of Europe, a meeting point in between the “so-called East and the so-called West”, a place which was a rite of passage for young people exploring the Orient but also “a dead end”. Now in the twenty-first century (and since 1989) Istanbul is undergoing major changes and expansions, and is again a “big city in-between” – in between the old and the new. It has reinvented itself like many other places in Europe after 1989. Europe was being “remapped” – physically and mentally. The Black Sea and the Baltic Sea were once divided: after 1989 they are opening up. The reunification of Europe was also a reunification of its seas. Istanbul is becoming the financial, logistic and intellectual centre for an area of the world corresponding to the area of influence of the old Ottoman Empire. At Ataturk International Airport you can find flights to places that you can only catch from Istanbul: Bishkek, Tashkent, Baku... There is a huge movement of people to and from these places to Istanbul, and Schlögel could see the effect of this new migration on the streets of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. The post 1989 remapping of Europe and in particular the Black Sea is creating a new future for Istanbul.
One member of the audience questioned whether the East-West divide was really being replaced by a new tension between old and new. She described how the religious conservative politicians of Turkey were using Istanbul’s history selectively to reinvent the city. This politically motivated and selective reading of the past was a misuse of cultural heritage, a global re-branding for marketing purposes rather than a re-invention. Contemporary artists and cultural people, along with historians and more enlightened politicians and the citizens themselves must participate to ensure that the reading of the past was more nuanced.
Jacek Dominiczak and Monika Zawadzka, architects and anthropologists from Poland presented their Fast Urban Research of Istanbul. Among the specific features that they found in Beyoglu and Balat (two areas of Istanbul, the latter an old Jewish district) was the “independence of the upper floors” of buildings from the street below. They likened the street facades to tall rock cliffs through which rivers (of people) run, carving the direction of the street and under cutting the upper floors, while the upper floors face in many different directions.
In the evening, Safak Uysal, Bedirhan Dehmen and Dogus Bitecik presented Monday in the Sun at Istanbul Modern. It was radical remaking of the piece played throughout the ground floor of museum to a huge crowd who moved with the performance, including into the restroom. As they danced the last tango outside with the sea behind them the mosque began the call to prayer...a perfect ending...
Sunday 29 March: Sound of the Suburbs...
SEAS Istanbul is now over, regarded by everyone – staff, artists and guests – as a success. We had good audiences (some venues in fact over their capacity) and we presented some fine shows, well-attended workshops and a high-quality conference with our colleagues at SantralIstanbul and Bilgi University. Everyone who helped us here in Istanbul must be thanked for their support, management and good friendship, especially the energetic team at Istanbul 2010, who are already thinking about their next project...
CityScape ended with an intense session which focused on Istanbul’s urban landscape and stories from other cities. The speakers included arts group INGREPP from Sweden who presented their community engagement work in Gothenburg, a presentation from Umea and its candidature to be European Capital of Culture in 2014, Michael Trainor gave an entertaining presentation on his public art work in the coastal towns of Britain and the final panel discussion looked in depth at the possible effects of the Istanbul 2010 European Cultural Capital project on the city.
It was fascinating to hear about the urban development challenge in Istanbul. Istanbul has grown at a massive rate since the 1960s. Many of the suburban areas have been self-built by families or private developers who would claim some empty land, build an apartment for themselves plus two or three others for their extended family and may be one more to rent. Although it is not an entirely organic or spontaneous process, the city seems to have grown and developed without an urban planning policy or official overview through this "squatting process" into a metropolis of 18-20 million inhabitants. The result is a sprawling suburban area which the educated middle classes, living in the centre of Istanbul, rarely visit and even regard as dangerous or foreign. There is even an “illegal” road tunnel opened in the last two weeks which never received “planning permission” as such.
This is changing. Now huge tall skyscrapers are planned (one will be the tallest in Europe). Some already stand on the horizon like exclamation marks over the densely packed town houses. At CityScape we also saw images of the planners’ proposed new developments, incredibly similar to Dubai’s towering complexes, which will require the demolition of many of the city blocks. There is no public consultation. The loss of cultural heritage, the urge to gentrify and fears about the privatisation of public space is causing great disquiet. And there is a strong sense that Istanbul 2010 is one of the main motivations of this change – that Istanbul has to be “cleaned up” to be a European Cultural Capital. One speaker even described Istanbul 2010 as a giant real estate speculation and another said thank god that there has been a credit-crunch because perhaps some of these buildings will not happen.
For the international visitors, the final day of SEAS Istanbul ended with an illuminating guided tour of the Golden Horn and a brief insight into some of these urban issues. Far from being dangerous or foreign, the suburb we visited, after a 20 minute drive, seemed clean and friendly. Children played in the street in sight of their homes; there were many shops; there was a well-kept public park; wide roads; great hill top views over the city; even an informal local bus service... and of course no tourists – except us!
I am leaving Istanbul with an admiration for this marvellous city and its people. It is a city with a style of its own. It is not for me as an outsider to judge whether the Dubai towers will be a better or worse thing – but I will say that the architects must consult with and listen to the residents, if only because it seems that so much of Istanbul’s physical urban landscape has been directly designed and developed by generations of residents and migrants without the need for trained urban planners at all! The citizens themselves are the planning experts and have made a city which works for them. We feared that SEAS might be lost in such a big city, but we can see now that it did have a place – the art in the streets engaged with the citizens, the informal architects of their own city. But how interesting it would have been to have placed some of our work in the suburbs! There we would have found an entirely new audience and new reaction. Perhaps Istanbul 2010 could make this a focus of its programme? Placing art outside of the centre and creating spaces for art in these psychologically remote districts could have a significant impact. It might help to break down the sense of disconnection between the urban centre and its periphery: a fitting legacy for a European Capital of Culture.
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Now SEAS will rest for some months before it arrives again in Helsingor, Helsingborg and Copenhagen in August and after that Gothenburg, Tromso and Skegness. Our Swedish truck is packed, ready to leave and the guests and artists are being transferred to the airport. Some small things to be done before we go, but we are leaving satisfied with the event and looking forward to the North Sea tour... new places, new friends...
Best wishes to everyone...
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