Mahsul Vakaları / Yield Events

Research, exhibiton and public programs / Curating / Bayetav Sanat

General views from the exhibition, Photos: Kayhan Kaygusuz

Dünya ile kurulan ilişkilere dair tarifleri yeniden ele alan Mahsul Vakaları, işbirlikleri ve bir aradalıklara dayalı bir sergi ve kamu programı olarak Bayetav Sanat’ta gerçekleşiyor.

Mahsul Vakaları, Çukurova’da başlayan ve İzmir’de devam eden, Anadolu’nun güney ve batı kıyılarındaki kırsal modernleşme sürecinin çevresel, kültürel ve toplumsal mahsullerini araştıran Mahsul Projesi’nin bir mahsulü. 2022 yazından bu yana süren, coğrafya gezileri, arşiv ziyaretleri, görüşmeler ve kayıtlarla beslenen araştırma, eş zamanlı olarak genişleyen çevrimiçi bir arşiv denemesi de sunuyor. İzmir ayağı BAYETAV Bir Arada Yaşarız Destek Programı ile desteklenen Mahsul Projesi, ekolojiyi türler arası ilişkilerle kenetlenen çok katmanlı ve devingen bir ağ olarak ele alıyor. Mahsul Vakaları ile bugünün devinimlerini coğrafyadan hikâyelerle hatırlayarak, yeniden seslendirerek ve türler arası birliktelikler hayal ederek düşünmeyi öneriyor.

Sergi ve kamu programı, dünyayı benzer meraklarla mesken tutan üretimleri yankılarken onlarla işbirliği yaparak çoğalıyor, toprağın, suyun ve havanın hikâyelerini buluşturuyor. Dilşad Aladağ’ın araştırma sürecinden süzülenler ile birlikte ANATOPIA, Ali Cindoruk, Aslıhan Demirtaş, Aslı Özdoyuran, Eylül Şenses, Fatma Belkıs & İz Öztat, Yasemin Ülgen’in üretimleri sergi kurgusunu oluşturuyor.

Serginin kavramsal çerçevesini oluşturan Mahsul Projesi araştırma süreci 2022 ve 2023 yılında CultureCIVIC: Kültür Sanat Destek Programı kapsamında Avrupa Birliğinin desteğiyle üretilmiştir.

Readdressing relations with the world, Mahsul Vakaları [Yield Events], opens at Bayetav Sanat as an exhibition and a public program based on a series of multispecies collaborations and comraderies.

Mahsul Vakaları is the yield (mahsul) of the Mahsul Projesi [Project Yield], which investigates the environmental, cultural, and social yields of rural modernisation in the Southern and Western shores of Anatolia. Starting in Çukurova, the project continues its journey in İzmir. While being nourished by forays to geographical locales, archival visits, interviews and recordings since the summer of 2022, Mahsul simultaneously offers an expanding online archive. Mahsul, whose İzmir stop is supported by BAYETAV Research Fellowship, approaches ecology as a mobile, multi-layered mesh connected through manifold relationships with organic and inorganic entities. Together with Mahsul Vakaları, the Mahsul Projesi invites us to think of the mobilities today by remembering the stories from this geography, reiterating them and imagining earthly companionships.

A shared sense of wonder resonates throughout the artworks in this exhibition and Mahsul Vakaları multiplies in its collaborations with them and meshes the story of the land, sea, and air.  The works of ANATOPIA, Ali Cindoruk, Aslıhan Demirtaş, Aslı Özdoyuran, Eylül Şenses, Fatma Belkıs & İz Öztat, Yasemin Ülgen, together with the yields of Dilşad Aladağ's research process constitute the narrative of the exhibition. 

Yield Events research process, which forms the conceptual framework of the exhibition, was produced in 2022 and 2023 within the scope of CultureCIVIC: Culture and Arts Support Programme.

Basın kiti için tıklayınız - link for the press kit in Turkish 

Selected Reviews

Ömer Mirza Şeker, Anadolu Ajansı 2024

Kadim Üretim Yöntemlerini Hatırlatan Bir Sergi, Vesime Itır Demir, Hürriyet 2024

Emine Uyar, Evrensel 2024

Natives and Displaced Ones

Artistic research, installation / İzmir / Bayetav Sanat 
The project is developed within the scope of the Mahsul [Yield] Project and exhibited at Mahsul Vakaları - Yield Events exhibition.

Installation.
Wooden plinth and a fig tree sapling, 270 x 270 x 150 cm.
Found and produced objects, frame, 30 x 40 x 5,5 cm (6 pieces)
Sound, 5’ 45”, Syrian Woodpecker-Dendrocopos syriacus.

As humans transform the uncultivated and unclaimed 'mevat' lands into gardens and orchards, İzmir evolves into an important connecting port in the trade network carrying the fruits of Western Anatolia to Europe. Centuries pass, hunts and hunters, natives and displaced ones change. While the birds of this harbor fly into exile, the woodworms of distant ecologies reach this harbor. Finding the strength to mature and settling in the hollow of the tree, the worm cultivates its own gardens on the tree. In the absence of the bird, the tree that feeds the worm's belly cannot nourish itself or humans anymore. The gardens turn into landscapes of struggle.

The Natives and Displaced Ones is a current station of the research of the same title that explores the entangled stories of the Fig Tree, the Woodpecker, the Woodworm, and Human that have left traces along the Mediterranean coasts. The installation originates from the Land Law of 1858, which can be considered as a turning point in the environmental history of the geography covered by the Ottoman Empire. Assembling a multispecies narrative, Natives and Displaced Ones installation opens up questions about ownership, care, and satisfaction in humanity's relationship with the land.  As a part of the installation, a spatial intervention questions the scale and the ownership of the land that is occupied to feed and settle. A video installation and cabinets of curiosities hosting the traces of species of this entangled story completes this intervention.

Natives and Displaced Ones installation is produced with the support of BAYETAV. The research process was supported by CultureCIVIC, a project by the European Union, which included consultancy support from Meriç Öner.

Natives and Displaced Ones  hosts the book Seeds of Power by Onur İnal and Yavuz Köse, which compiles various studies on Ottoman environmental history. Maps from 1925 depicting various districts of Izmir, selected from the SALT Research Collection, accompany the installation.

Photo credits: Kayhun Kaygusuz

Identification of the Dunes, Invention of the Coast 

Artistic research and lecture performance / İstanbul / AVTO 
The project is developed within the scope of the Mahsul and Shorelines projects.

In the 20th century, rural areas of Anatolia underwent a transformation into sites for research and development in modernization projects. One of the responsibilities assigned to foresters in this field was the identification and reclamation of active coastal sand dunes. Professor İbrahim Atay aimed to stabilize the “active” dunes, which he believed would cause “myriad and very significant damages,” through landscape interventions that became increasingly prevalent in the latter half of the 20th century. State narratives depicted the dunes as either a hard-to-handle monster or a barren desert where not even a blade of grass would grow. During this period, thousands of hectares of sand dune areas on the Anatolian shores were reclaimed with seeds from distant lands and through imported architectural interventions. Despite being arguably viable solutions by then, the landscape and plants had a shared fate in terms of displacement. Originally devised for and belonging to elsewhere they were not quite fitting into the natural setting but the project went on regardless. Ultimately, the monster was tamed, and the desert was rejuvenated to a state where it could yield crops. The identification of the dunes also paved the way for the invention of the coast. Initially, a new nature emerged, followed by the development of agricultural fields on the coasts, and the subsequent rise of holiday resorts.

Architect and researcher Dilşad Aladağ’s lecture-performance, titled “Identification of the Dune, Invention of the Coast,” is based on Professor İbrahim Atay’s book “Identification and Afforestation Technique of Dunes,” published in 1972. It will begin with an intergenerational dialogue between the performer and the author through his voice memos, exploring the contrasts between the perspectives of identifier and reclaimer, companion seeds, and architectural interventions. This fictive dialogue will take past studies conducted on the Mediterranean coasts into account and aim to ignite discussions on the practices that lay the groundwork for the transformation of Turkey’s coasts.

Images: Screenshots from performance shot made by Doğa Yirik, AVTO on 21.12.2023

Reference: İbrahim Atay, Identification and Afforestation Technique of Dunes, Istanbul University Faculty of Forestry, Kurtulmuş Printing House, Istanbul, 1972.

Developed as part of the research Shorelines, “Identification of the Dune, Invention of the Coast” is supported by the British Council’s Creative Collaborations Grant Programme.

Essay & Talk:

A Fictive Dialogue on Coastal Dunes

09.03.2024, Performance Ecologies Program curated by Eylem Ejder

We are delighted to have two special guest speakers this Saturday (2.30pm-4pm, GMT+3) to talk about performance lectures. Theatre scholar and performance artist Clio Unger is joining us with her talk titled "Consuming Art/Consuming Knowledge?" to be followed by architect and researcher Dilşad Aladağ’s presentation titled "A Fictive Dialogue on Coastal Dunes".

The talk "A Fictive Dialogue on Coastal Dunes" is about Dilşad Aladağ's lecture performance and research process titled "Identification of the Dune, Invention of the Coast" which was developed within the scope of the Mahsul and Shorelines projects. It explores the methodological potentials of a fictive dialogue as a performative research and lecture experience.

Mahsul

Public gatherings program / Curator / Online

Supported by EU CultureCIVIC Grassroots Grants in 2022 

How many crops can grow on the same soil? What is the connection of the railways, the dam, the factories and the power plants that have grown on Çukuorva as the other crops over the last two hundred years? How these infrastuctures evolved and given rise to other yields, industrial farming routines, microclimatic changes, urban-rural identities and new landscapes?

Mahsul Gatherings invites researchers who focus on Çukurova in their studies and seek answers to these questions together.

Records of the gatherings are online on YouTube and Mahsul.info

Invited speakers and their topics with English translation:

Dr. Seçil Binboğa (Minnesota Uni.): 

Experimental Nature: An Environmental Narrative on Landscape, Image and Sugarcane

Architect Aslıhan Demirtaş (KHORA)

Yields of Grafts: World Imagination of Dam Makers

Dr. A. Hilal Horzumlu (Yeditepe Uni.)

Nomadic Life and the Connection with Nature in the Mediterranean

Prof. Dr. İbrahim Ortaş (Çukurova Uni.)

The Future of Soil and Food in Çukurova

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sedat Gündoğdu (Çukurova Uni.)

Yields of Çukurova: Plastic Waste

The project is developed by Dilşad Aladağ in 2021 and supported by the CultureCIVIC Grasroots Project Grants in 2022. The local collaborator of Mahsul will be İsmet Aladağ, a local farmer and Nöbetçi Kütüphane, a local initiative. The project assistant is Arda Aslan, an architecture student from Istanbul Technical University.

CultureCIVIC:

Initiated by Goethe-Institut Istanbul, Anadolu Kültür, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), Institut français de Turquie, and Danish Cultural Institute in Turkey, and in collaboration with the Embassy of the Netherlands in Turkey, CultureCIVIC is a European Union project that aims to foster civil society involvement in the field of arts and culture.

Mahsul

Platform dedicated to conducting field research and gathering programs, / Adana, Mersin, İstanbul, İzmir / various collaborators / Supported by EU CultureCIVIC Grassroots Grants in 2022  and BAYETAV Research Funds in 2023

Mahsul [Yield in EN] focuses on the environmental, cultural and social yields of rural modernisation projects and industrial agricultural practices in Çukurova.

Mahsul  will be on the field as of 2023 and meet with the yields of Çukurova. In addition to field explorations and encounters, Mahsul will organize public gatherings and foster conversations on yields.

The main driver of the agrarian transformation of region have been associated with colonial aspirations of the former Ottoman Empire and modernisation ideals of the current nation state, Republic of Turkey. Various interventions and projects like the railway line,cotton colonies, factories, water dam and power plants were designed and realized in Çukurova in 20th Century. Mahsul Project aims to trace the starting points of these interventions and their environmental and cultural and social ‘yields’ on the landscapes of Çukurova and human-land relationships.

︎ Visit mahsul.info website for more information  

Photo 1: My mother, aunties and uncles in the cotton field where they worked during the summer, 1986, Karaisalı, Turkey
Photo 2: My father working in the field where young olive trees and pomegranates grow, 2015, Karaisalı, Turkey

Diagram:  Preliminary research sketches

︎ Visit mahsul.info website for more information  ︎

Mahsul asks: How many crops can grow on the same soil? What is the connection of the railways, the dam, the factories and the power plants that have grown on the same soil as the other crops over the last two hundred years? How these infrastuctures evolved and given rise to other yields, industrial farming routines, microclimatic changes, urban-rural identities and new semi-natural landscapes?

To explore these questions, the Mahsul Project aims to assemble a field research exploring the past and current urban and rural landscape through field trips and archival research. Adding to that, it aims to initiate a dialogue through series of field meetings in the region involving regional agricultural producers of different sizes, the people associated with the agriculturral industry, the inhabitants interconnecting rural and urban landscapes, and the memories that record this evolution.

Through this dialogue, Mahsul aims to create a collection of observations, answers and critiques on the transformation addressed. Also the dialogue will serve as a collective memory and an oral historiography that gathers people, their experiences and memories representing the different inheritances of the agrarian transformation the region experienced.

All  the encounters of these field visits will be recorded in the interactive Mahsul Archive. The website will function like a research diary that will also create a network of research foundings, new questions and connections linked to the land, agrarian developments, ideologies behind them, their influence on the human-land relationship and their other tangible and intangible artefacts.

Mahsul Project will be on the ground first in winter 2022 and spring 2023. In addition to field explorations and meetings, the Mahsul project will organise a series of public meetings and gatherings in Adana in collaboration with Nöbetçi Kütüphane, a local initiative dedicated to creating spaces for critical and creative encounters.

The project is developed by Dilşad Aladağ in 2021 and supported by the CultureCIVIC Grasroots Project Grants in 2022 and BAYETAV Research Funds in 2023.

CultureCIVIC:

Initiated by Goethe-Institut Istanbul, Anadolu Kültür, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), Institut français de Turquie, and Danish Cultural Institute in Turkey, and in collaboration with the Embassy of the Netherlands in Turkey, CultureCIVIC is a European Union project that aims to foster civil society involvement in the field of arts and culture.

BAYETAV: 

BAYETAV is a foundation that is concerned about the ongoing problems in social, political, economic fields and the ecosystem surrounding us, inequality, injustice and discrimination arising from differences and deprivations, and invites us to think about and produce solutions on the divisions and polarizations caused by these.(Google translate)