From Istanbul to Gwangju: Archiving The Unarchivable in Uprisings

Kwon Do Gyun, Begüm Özden Fırat, and Zeyno Pekünlü

November 20, 2020
8:00-09:30 in CET / 16:00-17:30 in KST

Watch it again here.

What are the strategies of remembrance for social uprisings from the 1980s onward? How do iconic images from these uprisings represent the masses and what remains unrepresentable? This panel explores these questions with case studies from Turkey and South Korea. Archivist Kwon Do Gyun presents The May 18 Democratic Archive as part of UNESCO World Heritage Records. Artist Zeyno Pekünlü discusses the ‘unrepresentable’ in the massive visual data related to the recent uprisings in Turkey. Sociologist Begüm Özden Fırat introduces the iconic images of the Tahrir and Gezi Occupations and speaks about how the crowds reemerge in contemporary politics. This event is co-hosted by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and 5·18 Archives in Gwangju.

Kwon Do Gyun currently works as an archivist at the 5.18 Archives in Gwangju. Kwon received a B.A. in economic history and an M.A. in records management from Mokpo National University. Kwon also received a Ph.D. in records management from Chonnam National University and served as an archivist at the Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education and Mokpo City Government.

Zeyno Pekünlü is an artist based in Istanbul. She holds an M.A. from University of Barcelona and a Ph.D. from Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul. She is currently running the Production and Research Program of the Istanbul Biennial (ÇAP) for young artists and researchers. Comprising a wide spectrum of material from the National Anthem to Turkish melodramas, from cheat sheets to YouTube videos, Pekünlü’s works traverse public and private manifestations of various forms of subordination, and problematize the technologies of power.

Begüm Özden Fırat is  Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey. She works in the fields of visual culture, urban sociology, and social movements studies. She is the co-editor of Commitment and Complicity in Cultural Theory and Practice (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2009), Cultural Activism: Practices, Dilemmas, Possibilities (Rodopi, 2011) and Resistance and Aesthetics in the Age of Global Rebellion (Küresel Ayaklanmalar Çağında Direniş ve Estetik, İletişim, 2015). Her book Encounters with the Ottoman Miniature: Contemporary Readings of an Imperial Art was published in 2015 by I.B. Tauris. Since 2018 she has been developing After the Event project with artist Zeyno Pekünlü.

SAHA – Supporting Contemporary Art From Turkey provided support for Zeyno Pekünlü and Begüm Özden Fırat. www.saha.org.tr