Ortadan Başlamak (Beginning from the Middle): Artİstanbul Feshane

Beginning from the Middle  
2023

The transition from a linear geometry, or in other words, a point-based geometrical system, to a variable, relative, flexible and fluid interpretation of space renders impossible any definition of the absolute or the accurate. We can no longer speak of a solitary single line that passes through two points. In fractal geometry, the effort exerted to find the “right point”, or to look for the right place to start or finish holds no meaning. On the other hand, this approach is not opposed to “knowing”. Relativity should not mean a loss of totality. Quite to the contrary, it should render possible an autonomous and united imagination of plurality

and difference, of the part and the whole. The acceptance as a given the self-proclaimed and desirable subject of modernity, or the right time and place, can no longer retain its validity, whether from a political or artistic perspective. If it is paradoxical to be trapped between relativity and absoluteness, or to seek a place between borders and boundlessness, then what is the excitement we discover in life, in what is “invisible yet

tangible, overly familiar yet perplexing, worldly yet deceptive”? How can a heterodox, pluralist cluster of “differences” be established and managed in a united, harmonious and rights-based manner? How will ones exist together? We have to begin to respond to such questions from the “here and now”, from the middle. Looking back from the frayed and storm-blown progress of the Angel of History (Angelus Novus) do we have any other option but to hold tight onto that which appears in the everyday?

Beginning from the Middle: Without brushing off either the fixity of national history or the

shackled temporality of modernity by proclaiming “the end of history”, or rejecting it with its existential lightness, to begin from today, from the now of today. To tie together that which has been severed and cast aside from its point of severance, and to lift up that which has been demolished from the precise point of its collapse, by beginning from the present like an archaeologist; the task of “Reassembling the Social” awaits us.

“The place where we begin” with this exhibition is the founding womb of an ancient city. A restless, imperfect, yet exciting site of exception. The last remaining example of “factory-spaces” that line up the coasts of a structure that presents a universal role model of industrialization, the driving force of modernization. Against the vertical absolute kingdom of the sacred and sovereign, the expansionist, reproducible, overarching spatialization of invisible hegemony, as close to the ground as possible. A centre of reproduction, made of the fragmented repetition of glass and iron, where the energy from coal is transformed

into electricity and labour power is transformed into commodity. A totality of shaft, wheel, pulley, belt and machine, which draws its meaning from the nature of time and the transmission of history.

If you lend an ear to Feshane’s history, you can hear the power that sets into motion all the

machines via transmission shafts, energy from the coal excavated in the forest where captives brought from Belgrade were settled, carried to Silahtar – to Santral İstanbul – via a railway line along the same trajectory. This tangible connection also activates a system of meanings: What is tied together by wheels, cogwheels, gearwheels and belts is, in fact, a community. It was not only fezzes, the most important symbol of modernization in the Ottoman Empire, and the uniforms of the regular army that were made at Feshane. With warp and weft, from top to bottom, from head to toe, it was a comprehensive act of change that was woven here.

Yet here, at this place where we join paths with history today, a further idea is born from the

charged relationship between mass production and creativity. Spare time, represented by a piece in the machine and in the operation of the system, the idler pulley; initiates a discussion on the function of free labour and its free time. The “idler pulley” which brings us together today and now under the name of art, becomes the symbol of a solidarity open

to all the associations of idleness, playfulness, creativity, going outside, viewing from the outside, of the beyond-the-border, of free criticism and fearless thought. “Artist Feshane” bears the promise of a more egalitarian, freer time, worth living. As it meets with Haliç and art, a passage opens in the here and now that leads to a new world. This invitation belongs to those who display the will to freely begin anew, together, amidst all tension and boundless desire. Welcome, take a seat at the table of art.

Ortadan Başlamak

Feshane Umut Buluşması
2023

İBB Miras’ın yürüttüğü titiz restorasyon sürecinin sonunda kente kazandırılan tarihi mekanlardan biri daha kapılarını açıyor. Osmanlı’nın ilk sanayi yapılarından olan Feshane, Artistanbul Feshane Sanat Merkezi adıyla, İstanbul Sanat Meclisi’nin düzenlediği, 19 Küratör ve 300 sanatçının katıldığı Ortadan Başlamak adlı sergiyle sanata merhaba diyor. Farklı tekniklerden ve dönemlerden 400’den fazla eserin yer aldığı, çeşitli etkinliklerle zenginleşecek sergi Haliç kıyısında yer alan Feshane’nin açık ve kapalı alanlarına yayılıyor.   

Sergi, her anın bir başlangıç ihtimali olduğunu müjdeleyen umutvar bir kavramsal çerçeveye yerleşiyor. “Ortadan başlamak” fikri çoğulluğu ve farklılığı överken, parça ve bütünü hem özerk hem birarada tahayyül etmeyi öneriyor. Yenilenmek için uygun zamanı ve mekanı beklemenin gerekli olup olmadığını tartışıyor. Şimdi ve burada, geçmişe aynı anda açılan bir geçit bulabileceğimizi düşündürüyor. Koparılıp atılanı, koptuğu yerden, yıkılanı yıkıldığı yerden şimdiden başlayarak bağlamaya; “Toplumsalı Yeniden Toplamak” görevini sanatın araçlarıyla düşünmeye davet ediyor.  

Feshane geçmişte kömürün enerjisinin elektriğe, emek bedenin gücünün metaya çevrildiği bir çoğaltım merkeziydi. Şimdi Haliç kıyısında, suya ve toprağa yakın, yatay, çoğalabilir, kapsayıcı yapısıyla, kadim kentin geleneklerini ve hayallerini birbirine bağlayan bir kültür sanat mekanı olarak yeni hayatına başlıyor. Şimdi tam da olduğumuz yerden, tarihe eklemlendiğimiz andan, ortadan başlayarak umut ilkesi etrafında buluşma zamanı. Art-ist Feshane’de sanatla ve santradan başlıyoruz!