Plug-in interventions


Workshop “Inventory”

The first on-site intervention in Gülsuyu and Gülensu was an international workshop realized between 2nd and 9th of May 2009 with students and recent graduates of Staedelschule – Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Frankfurt am Main), Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (Istanbul) and local actors from the neighborhood.

Over the course of 8 days, mixed groups investigated existing forms of “agency” in the neighbourhood. Six groups were formed, each focusing on one generic programme of a formal “cultural institution”. In the neighbourhood, these six themes became investigative frames to detect visible and invisible, formal and informal, stable and instable models of “agency”:

(1) Events (2) Collection (3) Archive (4) Communication (5) Library (6) Office

From July, the project team developed six concepts for “plug-in” interventions in the existing cultural infrastructure neighbourhood.

Each of the “agency tools” corresponded to the six generic themes - (1) Events, (2) Collection, (3) Archive, (4) Communication, (5) Library, (6) Office - and designed to insert doubt, trigger debates and stimulate a more strategic discussion on the future role and form of cultural production in Gülsuyu and Gülensu. Partnerships with selected cultural institutions and agency practices in the neighbourhood were formed during the research, design and implementation process.