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Diyarbakır
Hub IWords Written on the Water

Topics

Civic rights / Freedom of expression / Community development / Gender equality / Ecological crisis / Sustainability / Protecting cultural heritage / Memory / Public space / Environment

Disciplines

Literature / Research / Heritage / Urban studies / Visual arts / Performing arts / Contemporary arts

Phase 1

“Words Written on the Water” included preparatory productions of an art, culture and nature festival, with artists and initiatives from Diyarbakır and different geographies, aiming to have a place in the urban memory of Diyarbakır and to carry Kurdish language, culture and art out into the world.

Initiated with VAHA programme, the festival aims to enmesh the VAHA ecosystem to the Kurdish artistic and cultural ecosystem and to produce inter-spatial, inter-communal and inter-disciplinary artistic interlacements for a porous artistic expression. FeqîFest is the dream of a festival where the voices of all the diverse identities of human history intermingle with living and non-living voices of the earth. Through the words of Feqî written on the water, rolling into the poetic flow of coexistence, the festival strives to shake given meanings of the clichés. While the loss interfolds with the presence, only the artistic expression bodies forth the meshwork hidden in the spot. Down from Fiskaya to the Hevsel Gardens, a telluric voice roams the city spot by spot to spread the word farthest. Dare to hear it then it will tell you.

In this crone world, you move from spot to spot
You neither sleep nor do you ever come to a halt
In all honesty, you are the very image of my heart
You suffer and agonize, you are deep in misery

Diyarbakır

Wêjegeh Amed

Lîs Publishing established the first literature house of Diyarbakır called Wêjegeh Amed, a civic cultural space to open up social discussions directed through literature and arts.

Diyarbakır

Wêjegeh Amed

www.facebook.com/wejegehamed

Established in Diyarbakır in 2004, Lîs Publishing is an independent publishing house with a collection including classical texts of Kurdish literature, translations from world literature to Kurdish, researches on Kurdish arts and culture, children books in Kurdish, bilingual books of mainly Turkish women writers with Kurdish translations and texts in Kurdish, Armenian and Syriac on urban history and culture of Diyarbakır. With a strong agency from local to international networks of Kurdish language, Lîs established the first literature house of Diyarbakır in February 2020 called Wêjegeh Amed, a civic cultural space to open up social discussions directed through literature and arts with the cultural values of democracy, multilingualism and polyvocality.

Diyarbakır

Mordem Art and Ecological Life Association

Mordem is an independent art complex with its transformable theatre-cinema-dance hall, music classes, dance studio, sculpture workshop, and management office.

Diyarbakır

Mordem Art and Ecological Life Association

www.instagram.com/mordemsanat

Established in 2017 by the artists carrying out sustainable works from different branches of art, Mordem is an independent art complex with its transformable theatre-cinema-dance hall, music classes, dance studio, sculpture workshop, and management office. Mordem believes the ethnic and cultural diversity is the real wealth of society. Inspired by the joyfulness of art for a peaceful society, it builds future by helping children to become happy, productive, and peaceful individuals. Contrary to the current relationship between human and nature, it embraces the harmonious-productive way and use art to regain and protect the cultural heritage making this process possible.

Diyarbakır

Merkezkaç Art Collective

Merkezkaç is an independent art collective that works to develop arts and artists as well as disseminate their artistic products on a national and international scale.

Diyarbakır

Merkezkaç Art Collective

www.instagram.com/merkezkacart/

Merkezkaç is an independent art collective that works to develop arts and artists as well as disseminate their artistic products on a national and international scale. It is a not-for-profit collective that conducts joint projects with independent initiatives, collectives and artists; working autonomously. Therefore, it keeps a distance to any public or institutional entities and it collaborates with these formations only when the necessity is unavoidable. Merkezkaç Art Collective continues to carry out activities at an international level focusing on research, production, exhibition mainly being coordinated by its core team of Remzi Sever, Barış Seyitvan, Uğur Orhan, Murat Kartal.

Phase 2

Concrete Contract

in collaboration with Athens and Tirana hubs

Connecting three different cities, Diyarbakır, Athens and Tirana, the project “Concrete Contract” uses fiction as a tool to explore contexts, map new territories, and produces content through collaborations, exchanges and productions. This fiction fits and travels into the interstices of a concrete megalopolis spreading over Turkey and the Balkans. Concrete Contract faced local realities, different audiences and environments, but it also exposed what we believe to have in common: a territory linked by geography and history, intertwined practices, yearnings for a different future and the absolute necessity to meet and produce together.

The project expanded over eight different activities that punctuate and structure the fiction. There were activity phases of discussions, data-mining and brainstorming and activities of wide openings, collaborations and production. Storytelling, virtual and physical encounters, participation of artists, travels, workshops, diary of the journey, exhibitions, local events, interactions and publications are amongst the tools that were used for this purpose. The desired goal was to make this fiction tangible and craft a topography for all to see and explore.