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January 2, 2013

NCR-07 [Ecology]: Prophecies on the Urban Space Through the Crystal Ball of Sustainability


A text by Sonay Aykan from the pages of Ecology, 7th issue of the New City Reader.

Thanks to the emergence of a global exchange market for words,“sustainability” hasentered our livesas a side dish with our entrees, an ornament in our houses and a badge on top of our hearts. If ideology “is preciselythe confusion of linguistic with natural reality” thencontemporary use of the word “sustainability”opens a gateway to new forms of ideological aberration by detaching the sign from its very origins.[1]

With sustainability, environment ceased to beresistant against the growth-seeking human actions and employed a new, cooperative role that legitimizes human interference with the built-environment.Social responsibility and environmental protection,once impeached for hindering the economic growth, have gained new exchange values in the economy of concepts, of which the use value is,however, derived from nothing but the world of commodities.

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December 19, 2012

NCR-07 [Ecology]: Ecological Risk and Speculation

Şevin Yıldız’ın John May ile röportajı NCR-07 [Ekoloji] sayısında

ŞY : In your previous writings, you argue that sustainability as a concept is incoherent and politically inadequate therefore it leaves enough room for various kinds of perversions. Are these perversions fueled by our common fear of ecological risks? And even after so many various catastrophes we witnessed in the last 10 years, are those risks still being deliberately mismanaged in urban sphere to open up space for illegitimate interventions?

JM : It’s important to establish two dimensions, or registers, along which a concept like “sustainability” loses its bearings today. The first is a rather straightforward ethico-political dimension, in which it is often intentionally and insincerely employed as a marketing slogan. To my mind, there is nothing terribly complicated or surprising in this process, and not much separates it from propaganda more generally. I think we all recognize that it happens, and it doesn’t require any sophisticated theoretical operations to understand and unmask it.

But there is a second register, constituted by the unfolding of a slightly different and more concealed problem. One that, because it resides beneath our language, is far more difficult to outline; namely, the collapse of a scientific worldview organized by the dream of a stable conception of Nature. That worldview rather rapidly lost its bearings over the course of the previous century, and now it’s disoriented and confused. Today, when it tries to voice its most precious goals and truths—progress, development, growth, efficiency, innovation, production, invention—it secretly knows full-well the consequences of such truths. This quandry isn’t simply a kind of ‘problem’ that can be easily or immediately defined or solved, but rather an enormously thick historical-philosophical condition, which holds entire ways of life in its gravitational field.

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December 18, 2012

NCR-07 [Ecology]: An Interview with David Harvey: Practice of Commoning


Here comes a text from the pages of the latest NCR-07 [Ecology]: An interview with David Harvey by Pelin Tan and Ayşe Çavdar

I think people get muddled about the right to the city concept when they think it’s something that is given, up there… I think the right to the city is something that has to be struggled for and fought over and actually than discussed. Because it is always open for one group in population to claim their right to the city, that turns hegemonic. For example in many large cities we find the financiers, the developers and some very rich and influential people essentially dominate what happens in the city and if you go to them to say: ‘you don’t have a right to do that’ they say ‘of course we do, we live here we have the right to do that’. Just to take the example of New York city in 1970s, where the Rockefeller Brothers were adamant that they have the right to the city, they loved the city, they wanted it to be built in a different image and of course that led to exclusions. But there are always exclusions involved in any group that expresses its right against an other group that objects. So I would like to see for example; bourgeoisie excluded from the right to the city and the people to have the right to the city. I want to fill the idea of the right to the city -which I really call an empty signifier- with meaning. But the meaning is going to be set up by, lets say, popular organizations; for instance the homeless, the discriminated against the minorities…So right to the city is not sort of some beautiful ethics that than gets supplied across everybody. It is something that has to be fought over and fought for. So the only interesting question is who is going to get the right to the city, how it is struggled for and how that right gets defined.

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December 17, 2012

NCR-07 [Ecology]: Orchard the Brave Versus Transforming Istanbul

Here is Boğaçhan Dündaralp’s text for the 7th issue of the New City Reader [Ecology]:

In the last 10 years, perhaps similar to many other cities in the grip of global capitalism and neoliberal policies, Istanbul is a part of a process through which urban landscape is transformed and reproduced. This process redefines and shapes urban segments in social and ecological, not just in physical, terms. It is a context defined by the mechanisms of social segregation and exclusion; a context, which threatens public spaces by prioritizing private property, consumption and authoritarian urban design. Moreover, going beyond intimidation, the process transforms public spaces into private property by using mechanisms such as TOKİ, and destroys the natural resources of the city. In this context that became a source of social and ecological crises, “design” is used as a tool that ignores the realities of the “place”, legitimizes the prevalent through intense aestheticisation and refunctionalization; and the “designer” is used in a passive and reconciliatory role that encourages creativity along these lines.

Without a doubt, the most striking result for a city in which the rights to be an urban resident is violated, a city which is turning into isolated, consumption-oriented, artificial and homogenized landscape fragments, is the gradual annihilation of the possibilities for an alternative urban life and emancipation. Just like the natural resources of the city, multi-layered and productive urban landscapes that have a peculiar rhythm and way of life, in which the feeling of “place” can be experienced, are being ripped off from their sources and destroyed. Cites are losing their cultural heritage that arises from mobility and wealth, their networks based on interaction and their productiveness.

The story of Kuzguncuk Orchard is a resistance struggle that takes place in a context like this. It is the story of the residents of Kuzguncuk who against this hegemonic urban landscape, try to protect their “bostan” which is one of the natural resources of the city and their life, by using their cultural and social values that takes their power from “place”…

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December 14, 2012

The first edition of Istanbul Design Biennial bids farewell

The first Istanbul Design Biennial, realised after two and a half years of preparation, at the 40th anniversary of Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, with the co-sponsorship of Eren Holding, Koray Group of Companies, Vestel and VitrA, ended on Wednesday, 12 December.
Curators Emre Arolat and Joseph Grima interpreted the theme “Imperfection” (Kusurluluk), determined by Deyan Sudjic, Director of Design Museum – London and a member of the Advisory Board of the Istanbul Design Biennial, from their own perspectives. Over 100 projects by nearly 300 designers and architects from 46 countries were hosted in the two curatorial exhibitions, Musibet and Adhocracy located in two different venues.

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December 10, 2012

Last Days

Last 3 days for Istanbul Design Biennial! Musibet at Istanbul Modern and Adhocracy at Galata Greek School will end on December 12.

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December 7, 2012

7th issue of the New City Reader Ecology is out

Guest edited by Şevin Yıldız, the NCR-07 [Ecology] is out on the streets of Istanbul. The issues contributers are Sonay Aykan, Boğaçhan Dündaralp, John May, David Harvey, Pelin Tan and Ayşe Çavdar.

In the Ecology of Risk

by Şevin Yıldız

How does ecological risk turn into neoliberal speculation in the context of urban transformation? By this time, we already have heard a thousand times that we have never been so urbanized in human history and maybe we have reached our limits on this world. The collective anxiety towards this end is constantly “soothed” through mechanisms that use of a co-opted language of ecology . Risk needs to be foreseen and calculated; in Istanbul, risk is the shaky ground, in New York it is the tidal water. The ecological risk created a vacuum for maneuvers of the urban politics; today the entire discourse of urban transformation in Istanbul, like in many other places, finds echoes in this earthquake speculation vacuum. Risk is there as it always has been, but the city has turned into a ground for “catastrophe” land grab. While long-abandoned totalitarian grand gestures of nature-engineering continue to be tools of political power through projects like Kanal Istanbul, a small scale community vegetable garden finds itself at the heart of the “commoning” discussion. Do the people who have rights to this garden also have rights to the Black Sea to oppose an artificial canal that will irreversibly change the hydrology of it?

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November 30, 2012

Seminar Program – Industrial Design in the Triangle of Art, Craft and Innovation


Organizer: Industrial Designers Society (ETMK)
Panel: 2 December 2012, 14:00-16:00
İstanbul Modern

Istanbul Design Biennial Seminar Program continues with a panel titled “Industrial Design in the Triangle of Art, Craft and Innovation” organized by Industrial Designers Society (ETMK).
Today, roles of industrial designers are changing. Industrial design was perceived as a more technical discipline in the profession’s history; however, just as in the rest of the world, today’s industrial designers are more preferred in Turkey as well – for the projects which have a marketing-based view and a conceptual, innovative and futuristic claim. As industrial designers begin to create different fields for themselves under these unstable market conditions, the profession’s limits are expanding. The panel organized by Industrial Designers Society (ETMK) at the biennial examines the intersection of industrial design with art, craft and innovation; their overlaps and differences, as well as looking for the answers of these questions: How should industrial design gain a place in the network of invention, technology and engineering? How are these relations positioned in the world? How should designers position themselves against craft and art, while participating in projects that combine craft and art, and trying to make room for themselves in different fields by designing and producing their own products? Is a craftsman a designer as well, or can a designer be a craftsman, or does he/she have to be? How and to what extent can craft affect design? How close is an industrial designer to these concepts? In which situations does design coincide with art? Can design be “art” and designer “artist” as well? Where should we Turkish designers stand in this triangle, considering the expanding limits? How should Turkish designers be trained, so that they contribute to Turkish economy, find a place in the market and get employed? Should we have a predominant point in this triangle?

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November 26, 2012

Academic Program | Istanbul As a “Palimpsest” City and Imperfection Symposium

Organized by Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Architecture, Department of Urban and Regional Planning as a part of Istanbul Design Biennial Academy Program, “IAPS-CSBE Network” activities will end with a symposium titled Istanbul As a “Palimpsest” City and Imperfection at Istanbul Technical University Architecture Faculty Nezih Eldem Conference Hall on November 28, Wednesday.

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November 23, 2012

Istanbul Design Biennial Catalogue Is Now Available For Overseas Mail Orders

Istanbul Design Biennial catalogue, providing comprehensive information about the exhibitions, is comprised of three volumes, Imperfection, Musibet and Adhocracy. The catalogue features selected articles of the curatorial teams, addressing the conceptual framework. While Imperfection Volume includes the pre-events and biennial programs, the Musibet Reader surveys the 31 exhibited projects and includes articles by Emre Arolat – Musibet, David Harvey – The Right to the City, Yves Cabannes – Lessons from Istanbul, Uğur Tanyeli – Perfection, Imperfection, Reperfection, Murat Güvenç – (C)horeoscope, Levent Şentürk – The Ballard of Crab, Korhan Gümüş – This Transient World May Collapse in Only a Day. Adhocracy Reader, introduces the 63 exhibited projects, along with articles by Joseph Grima – A Brief History of Adhocracy, Elian Stefa – Exercising Freedom, Ethel Baraona Pohl – From Political Choice to Formal Proposals, Pelin Tan – Ways of Commoning, or Running Alongside the Disaster, Vera Sacchetti & Avinash Rajagopal – The Collective Story. Printed by Ofset Yapımevi the catalogue was co-edited by Vera Sacchetti, Avinash Rajagopal, Tamar Shafrir, Benan Kapucu and designed by Marco Ferrari (Folder), Elisa Pasqual (Folder). The Catalogue is now available for overseas mail orders as well as the biennial venues, İKSV Design Shop, and major bookstores. You can visit iksvtasarim.com for domestic orders or send an email to magaza@iksv.org for overseas orders.

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