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Inside Out

A public artwork installed in Eminönü, Istanbul for the 2nd Annual Pedestrian Exhibitions (2ci Istanbul Yaya Sergisi).

September 2005

 

Materials: Swings and electric motors (to keep the swings in perpetual motion) fixed to the window frames.

Duration: 2 months.

 

Statement:

It is undeniable that today a growing number of children are exposed to extreme violence and poverty, especially those who live on the streets and have nowhere to go, and have no place to claim.  In the streets, like those in Istanbul, they cling onto us, interrupt the course of our day and demand our attention.  They beg; yet, they remain invisible.  They are considered to be a part of all inconveniences streets bring.  These kids belong outside, with all that stuff in perpetual motion that continues to grow, beyond doors that shut them out.  They are subjects we avoid in conversations, and displays we turn our backs to: A disgrace we want to forgo.  And we catch ourselves saying: “Someone should do something about those children”.

 

In this project, “Inside-out”, my intent was to work with the invisible and the impossible. A great number of buildings in the Eminönü district of Istanbul remain empty, barely standing here and there, like ghosts of a past hard to forget.  The one that stood by the park, where these children sleep at night, became my project.  I wanted see what happens if I exaggerated an act we so often do, and create another dishonest solution that flies in the face of reality: give these invisible children a playground where they will never play, and create an impossible place they will never have…  I wanted to see how absurd it is to continue to add to this ever-growing string of deception yet another quick fix that gives us the illusion that a good deed has been done.