istanbul, rainer ganahl, biennial 2007

Istanbul Biennial, Hou Hanru, 2007 - Entrepot

Silenced Voices - Bicycling Istanbul's Topography of 21 Murdered Journalists, 2007

about 4.5 hours long video: In Istanbul (18 million people city), I bicycled between the sites of where 21 journalists where killed over the last century..

On each site, I wrote down with chalk the name of the journalists, the date of the killing and the profession, in

Turkish and English. (On one site, I was nearly taken into custody) for questioning.. (only phone calls and "biennial" protected me.. not nice police)

see below the map with the sites of the murder; detailed information on the journalists information and video stills. (thanks to all the people who helped me

to do this project, - in particular Sirin Tabanli - do the research - various historians, journalists and the Turkish institute of journalism helped me to research these tragic murderes)

more info on this project:

click for hi res pic

see video excerpt below:

on every site, the name and profession as well as the year of the assassinated journalist was inscribed.

This man was unhappy with my inscription and defended the wall. he also tried to chase me away

from writing on the street but my assistant present at the site (I was just dropped off at the Asian side)

was able to convince him so I was allowed to write on the street... PS: he was very angry at me...

video stills

see a little video excerpt: (10 min streaming - the ride between: Hrant Dink, killed in 2007 and Abdi Ipekci, 1979

video stills

note also that this journalist, Abdi Ipekci, killed in 1979, received a monument and a street named after him - both were killed in very affluent zones,

with Hermes and other luxery shops around -- it is quite interesting that the stone carved monument for Ipekci wasn't giving any details... ..

My "ad hoc" make shift monument, the chalk writing on the floor, though not lasting very long, was facing the stone monument...

needless to say that this project itself (the video, the poster, the web site) serves as a longer lasting marker for collective memory work than the chalk inscriptions. --- but this opposing of two different ways of "historiography"

(marble - versus -chalk) gave me ideas to think about. it wasn't about one against the other, but complementation - a reminder, a footnote for the brief time of being.. : may be all monuments should be revisited (general though): would that work?

video stills

below: yet another excerpt in a less affluent zone

click to see a video excerpt: (approx. 11 min. - part of hte more then 4 hour long project)

installation view:

Don't Steal My Puma Bicycle, 2007

(PUMA bicycle, Kryptonite Chain, porcelain chain, bronze chain)

A Bold Line - Back and Forth - Bicycling Madison Avenue, New York 2006

two channel DVD, 6 min (going is4:35 min., coming back 5:30 min)