Weaving Reeds Between Two Rivers

Artistic research / Doctorate Project / Bauhaus University of Weimar

Weaving Reeds Between Two Rivers
Practice-based Approaches to Reclaiming Indigenous Nomadic Pastoralist Knowledge in the Çukurova Wetlands

It explores the ecological constellations between nomadic pastoralists and the water bodies of Çukurova (Cilicia). Walking with the remnants of nomadic pastoralist ecologies, listening and learning with crafts, it assembles a counter-cartography to revive multi-species living knowledge while revealing the ruptures caused by the hegemonic infrastructures.

Exploring a counter cartography of Çukurova and its moving bodies

Images from my studio at International Artist Studio Program in Sweden, 2025, Stockholm

Images from the first Vorprüfung on November 19th, 2024 in Weimar

Ongoing PhD research. Contact me for more details ︎

Supervisors:
Jun. -Prof. Dr. Alexandra R. Toland link Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Faculty of Art and Design
Assoc. Prof. Aslıhan Şenel link Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture

Mahsul Vakaları / Yield Events

Research, exhibiton and public programs / Curating / Bayetav Sanat

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.

views from the exhibition, Photos: Kayhan Kaygusuz

Türkçe 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.

A Fictive Dialogue on Dunes 

Artistic research, lecture performance and installation / İzmir / Bayetav Sanat 
The project is developed within the scope of the Mahsul Vakaları and Shorelines projects.

The 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 begins with an intergenerational dialogue between the performer and the author through his voice memos, exploring the contrasts between the perspectives of the identifier and the reclaimer, companion seeds, and architectural interventions. This fictive dialogue takes past studies conducted on the Mediterranean coasts into account and aims to ignite discussions on the practices that lay the groundwork for the transformation of Turkey’s coasts. The installation, A Fictive Dialogue on Dunes, invites the viewers to experience the performance space containing the presentation-performance recording, research outputs and observation tools.

scenes from performance record

A Fictive Dialogue on Dunes, 2024 
Dilşad Aladağ
Video, site-specific installation
Performance recording, 47’ 00” (loop),
Archive file containing drawings, sand and plant samples, texts, overhead projector and magnifying lamp, ‎150 x 50 x 120 cm
Text: İbrahim Atay, Kumulların Tesbiti ve Ağaçlandırılması Tekniği, İstanbul Üniversitesi Orman Fakültesi, Kurtulmuş Matbaası, İstanbul, 1972
Voices: Erdem Şenocak, Dilşad Aladağ
Performance recording and editing: Sezer Koç ve Burak Çevik
Sound Design: Postgarden
Photos from the exhibition: Kayhan Kaygusuz

"Identification of the Dune, Invention of the Coast” research was supported by CultureCIVIC, a project by the European Union, which included consultancy support from Meriç Öner.. The lecture performance, which was developed as part of the "Shorelines” research conducted by Meriç Öner, is supported by the British Council’s Creative Collaborations Grant Programme.


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.

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".


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

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.

RENK / TIMBRE 

Site-specific sound installation / İzmir / Bayetav Sanat by ANATOPIA
Acoustic shells made of hornbeam sieve hoops and wool felt, wooden trestles, and 14 sound recordings. The project is developed within the scope of the Mahsul Vakaları Yield Events exhibition

The movements of the earth and its time units occur on a different time scale compared to the lifespan of human beings and the physical and administrative structures they create—at least, such is the case in the geography where this work is currently situated. Neither the span of empires nor centuries-old young states possess the length or endurance to fully master, embody, and transfer the history of the earth. It is perhaps why very few people can understand the language of geography and are capable of hearing what it says today. ANATOPIA, assuming the extended geography we inhabit as a deep time and expansive ground, came together to reestablish the story with hope. RENK [COLOR] is their first joint work which listens to and sounds the memory of the land in order to collectively propagate and voice insights and future imaginaries. The invited guests, who are from different disciplines but of similar sensitivities, turn into storytellers by reading selected passages from fictional narratives. This polyphonic installation contains multiple imaginaries and meanings due to the intangible nature of sound and fiction.

This is the first breath of RENK [COLOR]. We hope that by listening to the care and kindness inherent in the earth's descriptions of written methods, through a diversity of voices, languages and stories, we will be able to generate directions and methods to transform today's coarseness. We would like to widen the ground that these abstract and ephemeral sound waves will clear for new and plural subject narratives, after and beyond the exhibition, in an expanding, shared and spreading virtual environment. Alen Mevlat, Aslıhan Demirtaş, Bilge Bal, Dicle Kumarslan, Dilşad Aladağ, Emre Gönlügür, Eylül Şenses, Ezgi Hamzaçebi, Fulya Peker, Gizem Kıygı, Merve Bedir, Seda Mimaroğlu, and Yasemin Ülgen recorded the frequencies amplified by the beautiful hornbeam sieve hoops in this first installation.



ANATOPIA is a creative cooperative composed of Aslıhan Demirtaş, Dilşad Aladağ, Eylül Şenses, and Yasemin Ülgen. We have previously produced work together in various combinations before establishing Anatopia. We came together as a cooperative with intentions to try polyphonic methodologies to create in a world in crisis and to repair and reestablish an inclusive narrative of the extended geography we are situated in as a deep time and expansive ground. We have modeled ourselves as a constellation whose demarcation depends and changes according to a point of view. Anatopia’s first work together as a cooperative is RENK [TIMBRE].


Site-specific sound installation / İzmir / Bayetav Sanat by ANATOPIA
Acoustic shells made of hornbeam sieve hoops and wool felt, wooden trestles, and 14 sound recordings.

Dimensions:
GÖZ / Eye 200 x 171 x 177
YAŞ / Wet 115 x 74 x 144
KURT / Log 220 x 74 x 160
KUYU / Well 45 x 45 x 107

Design and production: Aslıhan Demirtaş, KHORA
Design team: Aslıhan Demirtaş, Serra Karslıoğlu, Destina Pütün
Hornbeam pulley productions: Oğuz Arslan
Felt: Tire Keçecilik
On-site implementation: Ergin Taşçı
Sound editing: Sezer Koç
Sound design: Gökalp Ergeçen
Software, technical application: Enrico Kip
Photos: Kayhan Kaygusuz, Fikret Can Kuşadalı