Dear Inurians,
With this second announcement I want to present you some more improved ideas on the concept and program of our intermediate workshop in Istanbul in March (alternate choices 11.-18.03 or 14.-20.03., with a shared core part 14.-17.03).
The workshop coordinating team consists now of 3 members. (I will introduce them below) We discussed and worked out the workshop concept and program more in detail. Herewith we would like to present the results. Below you will find informations on the following issues:
1. Workshop title
2. Workshop team
3. Workshop materials
4. Workshop main venue
5. Workshop part, improved timetable for the
6. Workshop taskforces
In particular, you may find the information under 6, the taskforces, interesting. A lot more there on the content.
So, enjoy the informations below, and make your pre-reservations soon. (Thanks to all, who already did so ! ) Next week we hope to release the 3rd announcement with the reservation form for definite applications. However you can send your pre applications as well your further questions to orhanes@superonline.com
For general information not contained in this update, pls have a look at the first announcement. (roundletter as well as inura website)
A final note: pls dont forget that we will have a lot to work, strictly :) So, if you want to take advantage of the vast nightlife, leisure time and touristic offers of istanbul, I advise you to join the second term and extend a few days into the next weekend. We will also be around to assist you into your entertainment life at the Bosphorus :)
all the best wishes to all of you for 2008 !
Orhan
-> Application Form Download
1. Workshop title
We decided to label the INURA08 Istanbul Intermediate Workshop as follows:
Urban Renewal in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul:
Strategies of Sustainable Transformation vs Spaciocide
The diverse associations of this title will be the subject matter of different taskforces during the workshop. (pls see below, part 6, taskforces)
2. The Workshop Team
The workshop initiative was started by Asli Kiyak Ingin and Orhan Esen.
Asli, architect, has been working in the Sulukule area since the redevelopment plans became public. She has been able to create a solidarity network with a whole set of very useful contacts of experts from various fields, and build up a considerable archive. She had suggested, when she heard of Inura meeting in Istanbul, that the workshop should focus on the Sulukule neighbourhood and she generously proposed sharing her network and contacts with Inurians.
Orhan, social and economic historian, freelance urban researcher and writer, contributed formatting and re-formulating that accumulation for the purposes of an INURA intermediate workshop.
Orhan and Asli were soon joined by Eylem Gulcemal, a phD candidate in planning in METU/Ankara and currently employed in the Istanbul Center for Metropolitan Planning and Urban Design (IMP). She is an indispensible contributor with her expertise in urban transformation.
The workshop will take place in 5 thematic subgroups operating as taskforces. Each of these will have an own local coordinator. It is suggested that each group should create its own visiting rapporteur or reporting structures from among its members.
Eylem, Asli and Orhan will each take the responsibility of one taskforce. Names of the further taskforce coordinators will be announced soon. They together will form the steering committee, hopefully to be assisted by a technical coordinator.
The Sulukule Residents' Association will take care of local contacts on site.
3. Workshop Materials
to be used include the new and highly contested code nr 5366, enabling expropriation in historical areas, documents of legal cases at courts, maps, surveys of the district, articles, documantery films, tv soaps, media articles, the dpu/ucl report, the municipality report.
Translated excerpts of relevant texts will be provided in the workshop folder.
4. Workshop Main Venue
Will be operative from Tuesday 11.03 afternon, expected first arrivals, till Thursday 20.03, last departures. It will be the site for ws secretariat, for all roundtables, briefings, discussions, panels, evaluation meetings, screenings. The venue will be in the Taksim / Beyoglu area and will be announced later.
5. Improved preliminary timetable for the Workshop Part (intersection period of early and late arrival parties)
Friday 14th March
Workshop is planned to start today at late afternoon, just following the introductory tour of the first party arivals. This is thought rather as a meeting with various official actors, where they brief on their 'Visions of Urban Transformation in the Historical Peninsula'. The members joining the second party are expected to arrive in Istanbul latest early friday afternoon, so they can join this meeting. After dinner, group will continue to discuss the presentations, and the taskforce coordinators will brief on their agendas.
Saturday 15th March
All groups will spend Saturday AM in the Sulukule area for a general orientation. Saturday PM is planned for groups' contacts and visits outside the area. Some contacts may be shared by more than one group
On Saturday evening there will be a traditional meze dinner in Kumkapi area, where many Sulukule residents make their living as street musicians and entertainers. Observations on site.
Sunday 16th March
Sunday is mainly to be spent with local actors inside the area. However, the agendas of different groups may vary, due to the type of work they foresee. Sunday late is time for groups' internal evaluations.
Monday 17th March
Monday early morning presents a last chance for contacts in the public sector, which might not be inclined 'to cooperate outside office hours'.
Monday late AM and noon is reserved for the presentations of the 5 taskforces, internal discussion and evaluation.
Monday afternoon is time for a public discussion. General public from Istanbul will be invited.
Monday nite will be the closing party, with the performances of Sulukule artists and musicians.
6. Workshop Taskforces: TF1,2,3,4,5
Workshops main work will be splitted into 5 smaller taskforces ...
TF1
Code 5366: A law for 'protection by renewal' or for enforced gentrification?
A recently released, so called law for 'the sustainable use of downgraded historical real estate through protection by renewal' is the legal basis of the recent transformation efforts in Sulukule neighbourhood, whereas Sulukule is just one of a set of examples. The workgroup 'code 5366' will try to construct the overall picture comparing with other areas affected. Information about the law as well as about its implementation procedures will be the starting point. Visits to the other areas like Tarlabasi, Suleymaniye, Fener/Balat, the so called Algerian/French/Algerian street, ... and contacts to relevant actors in volved in the process in these will be the focus. Furthermore, the group will be involved in discussions with Sulukule residents on the main goals of the code.
The group will be coordinated by Ms Eylem Gulcemal
TF2
Planning Sulukule: Business as usual versus alternative paths
This group will be more technically involved and will deal with the improvement as well as the possible future paths of the new masterplan for Sulukule neighbourhood. Group will be briefed on past developments, how and which actions of different actors caused which alterations of the paln ... The understanding of 'What has happened ? Which interventions have been made ? How successfull were they ? What did / does participation in local context mean ? Whats missing ? How can still be wisely intervened ?" will be essential to the work of this group.
Strategies of an alternative physical planning will be explored towards possibilities of a sustainable development based on local traditions in particularly within the music and entertainment sector. Today most locals have to commute to other areas in the city to make a living in the entertainment sector and nightlife, as local entertainment houses were cleansed in the 90s. Investigations in the Kumkapi entertainment area where the economy of most households is based, is also part of this groups work.The past work of the Development Planning Unit / University College of London, last year in Sulukule will also be presented and evaluated within this context.
Group will be coordinated by Asli Kiyak Ingin.
TF3
Resettlement: To cleanse poverty in the center or to build the social city ?
Renters constitute the least protected or most disadvantaged group according to the official wording of the Code5366. However, politicians still paying lipservice to the concept of a social city, offer a solution: Home ownership through mortgage with 'good conditions' in a new housing area built by TOKI, the public Mass Housing Administration. Some incline to accept, some don't. Investigations of the taskforce in the renters' millieu, includes an excursion to Tasoluk, the resettlement area in the far, far periphery of the Megapolis. Some residents of the Tasoluk area also express concerns of the Roma becoming their new neighbours. Contacts hereby will include among relevant institutions and experts, also renters of different profile and views from Sulukule as well as residents in Tasoluk.
Group most likely to be coordinated by Aysim Türkmen, (to be confirmed) an urban anthropologist, conveying an actual field research project in the Tasoluk settlement.
TF4
Cultural Identities and Visions: Battlefield of civilizations or possibilities of co-existence ?
What makes Sulukule more exciting and attractive than any other transformation area or planning process in town is the fact that it is placed at the exact intersection of three 'seemingly incompatible' or 'hardly compatible' visions of cultural identity.
(a) It is the oldest Roma settlement in town going back to middle ages, with settled, landowner households whereas Roma people are usually nomadic. Sulukule constitutes the uncontested Walhalla of Roma identity in Turkey. (b) The settlement is located just at the Roman City Walls within a a valuable setting of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman relics of monumental and civil architecture. The educated 'westernized-enlightened' middle classes claim that area within the metropolitan poverty core back as part of the world historical heritage, for which they claim advocacy. The changing character of Istanbul into a post industrial metropolis puts urban renewal through cultural tourism on the agenda and helps legitimizing these efforts. A masterplan to express this particular group vision has been prepared. (c) Lastly, the rather recent reislamisation movement reinvented a traditon of an Ottoman "golden age", mainly imagining a city of purity. Historical peninsula is regarded as the primary battlefield of this revivalist vision, articulated in the 90s in simple suppression; first stigmatizing traditional entertainment houses and later culminating in shut down of the sector as incompatible with the vision of austerity. As the islamist movement most recently turned neoliberal and came to represent the countryside origin rising new middle classes, gentrification was put on their agenda. Hence visions of cleansing acquired more and more an ethnocultural character of a spaciocide. The tensions and ongoing fighting as well as a series of necessary compromises and changing coalitions between the three tendencies makes the game most interesting. Taskforces' investigations will cover all three millieus.
Group to be coordinated by Orhan Esen.
TF5
"External interventions ?" Auditing the own work.
Sulukule has been, since the plans for redevelepment became public, -but also before- quite at the focus of local and international attention of intelligentsia, to a degree like few other comparable areas have ever enjoyed. The particular ethnic/cultural background diverted extra attantion to the area. Coverages in local, national and international media, solidarity festivals, artistic production, academic field work of various disciplines, political action, TV soaps, featured films, were among different forms of interventions and investigations from outside. Consequently Sulukule has become a hotspot, more than other areas affected by similar problems. Among most recent interventions since the planning started can be counted: the festival '40 days and 40 nights' by the Sulukule Platform (Asli Kiyak Ingin), a planning student groups' workshop from Development Planning Unit of UCLondon, German journalist Kai Stritmatters' article in 'die Sueddeutsche' and 'Neue Zürcher Zeitung', the Sea of Dance performance with Roma artists on stage by Sule Ates, and others.
They all helped the Sulukule conflict to popularize in Turkey and abroad. The Inura workshop, itself a typical example of external intelligentsia intervention should deal with the issue of external interventions in a self reflexive way. The group will be encouraged to make observations of the workshop itself, and develop an agenda of self-evaluation. Group Coordinator will enable access to past material and works and facilitate discussion. Reflexions of the residents on various interventions will constitute another string of inputs.
The coordintor of this group has yet to be named among different names proposed. |
