- Mail to JANNI KARIMÄKI
Helsinki - Berlin - Istanbul, 19th to 21st August 2012
Dear Janni,
when I read the article which Hüseyin Yanar wrote about your performance White Man in Istanbul, which you had realized, I was visiting this city. While I was walking in Beyoğlu, one of the mail pedestrian axis of Istanbul, which you used as the performing site, I was imagining you walking there in white, with the coca-cola can in your hand, asking people for an exchange with water. Unfortunately I was not one of the persons who could experience you in real, though now after two months, I mean to have seen you and even have followed you all through your path. The way how Yanar is writing made you alive in my imagination. I mean that the sober manner, Yanar brings the words and the thoughts together would even make a child understand very profound thoughts he is emphasizing and the relation he is building in-between them. I am very glad that I had the opportunity to find the access to your work through his writing, through the images he builds up with his words.
At that moment, when I had read it, even I liked your performance and Yanar's article, I didn't know that the thoughts and the images ofWhite Man will come with me to all the other places I was going to visit. But probably there was not a single day, that one or another image of 'White Man in Istanbul' didn't pop up in my mind. So I decided to make an 'Iade-i Ziyaret'.
Iade-i Ziyaret is a Turkish Expression. Actually it should be an Arabic, which we use in the Turkish language. 'Iade' means 'to give back'. 'Ziyaret' means 'to visit'. 'Giving back the visit'. It is a very polite way which articulates the balance of the relations which the traditional Turkish culture very cares about. Similar to the balance of giving and taking, speaking and listening, it is important in relations to have a slight consciousness about being a guest and welcoming a guest. This consciousness is what gives a kind of permission to react back and come into a dialogue. A consciousness which has a kind of social responsibility in it. It may also be seen as a pond where to find motivation to act.
So, I decided to make an Iade-i Ziyaret to you in Helsinki. You had visited Istanbul, and faced a the culture in which I had grown up, which many 'white man' consider as the door to the orient. You had came with yourself and had outed your very inner issue to Istanbul. I was touched by your humble, ephemeral art of performing your outing. I felt the motivation in me to speak to you back. So I came and outed my very inner issue to Helsinki. Is it possible that performances speak with each other?
The theme which I am very considered about are the mental spaces in which orient women is put to live in. The very narrow spaces of women which doesn't allow them to be active in producing the social values and world views. To be mighty and able to produce the social norms with the males together. I have a problem with that, when people cannot live self-defined lives. When they are not supported even not allowed to experience self-realization. The point is that I don't believe that these are possible when the lives of men and women are cut from each other, when the transparency is not what the people of a society are looking for. Since I believe that it is the transparency which allows any social community to recognize occurring problems, so that they can deal with them. How to identify the problems and how to deal with them is very defining how the culture of a society looks like. Since a life without problems is not possible.
The outer eye is very present for the oriental women. The consciousness of how they are seen, how they are allowed to be seen is what they are trained from childhood on. I don't think that it is just the case for the women in çarşaf*. But with Çarşaf the interest of controlled female body, female appearance arrives its extremes. The female body which is appealing for the male has to be controlled and made invisible.
From my point of view is this a very smart way to make a mobile private space which can move in male existing spaces. I even can imagine that I would like to have such a space, with which I can be mobile without giving so much information to the outer world, as I do when my face, my hair, my statue can be seen. I really can imagine that I like to play such a game. But it is quite different, when this is predefined for the women lifelong. That it is predefined when you are a woman, the best you can do is to master the household, having kids, obeying the husband and staying as invisible as possible.
No. I don't believe, that this is just a problem of the oriental women. It is also a problem of the oriental men. A social life where men don't have their women, whom they admire on their side to carry the society, not living harmonious and respectful with the female energy can just be or turn to be pathetic. At least this is my very opinion. But I do also believe that just this has to be a matter of western world. The condition and the needs of the oriental women is probably not to be liberated without the empathetic interest of the white (wo)men.
So I decided to wear a çarşaf, take a scissors with me and ask people at the street and shops of Helsinki for help. If they would like to support me with cutting pieces from my çarşaf and help me to get rid of the narrow borders of the culture I was living in.
Et voila. That's me. That's my performance. And that's my way of speaking with you.
Sincerely
NINEL
*Çarşaf is the word used in Türkiye, for the black fabric which the women are carrying when they are in social spaces.
Helsinki - Berlin - Istanbul, 19th to 21st August 2012
Dear Janni,
when I read the article which Hüseyin Yanar wrote about your performance White Man in Istanbul, which you had realized, I was visiting this city. While I was walking in Beyoğlu, one of the mail pedestrian axis of Istanbul, which you used as the performing site, I was imagining you walking there in white, with the coca-cola can in your hand, asking people for an exchange with water. Unfortunately I was not one of the persons who could experience you in real, though now after two months, I mean to have seen you and even have followed you all through your path. The way how Yanar is writing made you alive in my imagination. I mean that the sober manner, Yanar brings the words and the thoughts together would even make a child understand very profound thoughts he is emphasizing and the relation he is building in-between them. I am very glad that I had the opportunity to find the access to your work through his writing, through the images he builds up with his words.
At that moment, when I had read it, even I liked your performance and Yanar's article, I didn't know that the thoughts and the images ofWhite Man will come with me to all the other places I was going to visit. But probably there was not a single day, that one or another image of 'White Man in Istanbul' didn't pop up in my mind. So I decided to make an 'Iade-i Ziyaret'.
Iade-i Ziyaret is a Turkish Expression. Actually it should be an Arabic, which we use in the Turkish language. 'Iade' means 'to give back'. 'Ziyaret' means 'to visit'. 'Giving back the visit'. It is a very polite way which articulates the balance of the relations which the traditional Turkish culture very cares about. Similar to the balance of giving and taking, speaking and listening, it is important in relations to have a slight consciousness about being a guest and welcoming a guest. This consciousness is what gives a kind of permission to react back and come into a dialogue. A consciousness which has a kind of social responsibility in it. It may also be seen as a pond where to find motivation to act.
So, I decided to make an Iade-i Ziyaret to you in Helsinki. You had visited Istanbul, and faced a the culture in which I had grown up, which many 'white man' consider as the door to the orient. You had came with yourself and had outed your very inner issue to Istanbul. I was touched by your humble, ephemeral art of performing your outing. I felt the motivation in me to speak to you back. So I came and outed my very inner issue to Helsinki. Is it possible that performances speak with each other?
The theme which I am very considered about are the mental spaces in which orient women is put to live in. The very narrow spaces of women which doesn't allow them to be active in producing the social values and world views. To be mighty and able to produce the social norms with the males together. I have a problem with that, when people cannot live self-defined lives. When they are not supported even not allowed to experience self-realization. The point is that I don't believe that these are possible when the lives of men and women are cut from each other, when the transparency is not what the people of a society are looking for. Since I believe that it is the transparency which allows any social community to recognize occurring problems, so that they can deal with them. How to identify the problems and how to deal with them is very defining how the culture of a society looks like. Since a life without problems is not possible.
The outer eye is very present for the oriental women. The consciousness of how they are seen, how they are allowed to be seen is what they are trained from childhood on. I don't think that it is just the case for the women in çarşaf*. But with Çarşaf the interest of controlled female body, female appearance arrives its extremes. The female body which is appealing for the male has to be controlled and made invisible.
From my point of view is this a very smart way to make a mobile private space which can move in male existing spaces. I even can imagine that I would like to have such a space, with which I can be mobile without giving so much information to the outer world, as I do when my face, my hair, my statue can be seen. I really can imagine that I like to play such a game. But it is quite different, when this is predefined for the women lifelong. That it is predefined when you are a woman, the best you can do is to master the household, having kids, obeying the husband and staying as invisible as possible.
No. I don't believe, that this is just a problem of the oriental women. It is also a problem of the oriental men. A social life where men don't have their women, whom they admire on their side to carry the society, not living harmonious and respectful with the female energy can just be or turn to be pathetic. At least this is my very opinion. But I do also believe that just this has to be a matter of western world. The condition and the needs of the oriental women is probably not to be liberated without the empathetic interest of the white (wo)men.
So I decided to wear a çarşaf, take a scissors with me and ask people at the street and shops of Helsinki for help. If they would like to support me with cutting pieces from my çarşaf and help me to get rid of the narrow borders of the culture I was living in.
Et voila. That's me. That's my performance. And that's my way of speaking with you.
Sincerely
NINEL
*Çarşaf is the word used in Türkiye, for the black fabric which the women are carrying when they are in social spaces.