Turkey 2016, 28 May 2016 — 27 Nov 2016
National Participations

Turkey 2016

Darzanà: Two Arsenals, One Vessel

Arsenale, Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, Sale d’Armi, Campiello Tana, 21664-21680

The Pavilion of Turkey presents the project Darzanà. Curated by Feride Çiçekoğlu, Mehmet Kütükçüoğlu and Ertuğ Uçar, with curatorial collaborators Cemal Emden and Namık Erkal, the exhibition team of Darzanà consists of Hüner Aldemir, Caner Bilgin, Hande Ciğerli, Gökçen Erkılıç, Nazlı Tümerdem and Yiğit Yalgın.

Central to the concept behind Darzanà is the common cultural heritage shared between Istanbul and Venice arsenals, reflecting the trails found in language and architecture on future projections. The title of the project Darzanà shares the same origin with the Turkish word tersane and the Italian word arsenale. For the Biennale, a last vessel, a baştarda will be constructed out of waste materials in Istanbul and transported to Venice to complete the connection between the cities.

This project builds a bridge between the dockyards of Venice and Istanbul, borrowing its title from a hybrid word which has its roots in the Mediterranean. The title of the project makes a reference to Lingua Franca, as the term Darzanà corresponds to the Turkish word tersane and the Italian word arsenale in this hybrid language and in fact all three words share the same origin. A Lingua Franca was used in the Mediterranean basin from the 11th to the 19th century between people who needed to communicate with each other, such as sailors, travellers, merchants, and warriors. In the same vein, it is possible to talk of a common architectural language and to define it as Architectura Franca.

Venice and Istanbul, despite their different identities and different dimensions today, both featured considerable dockyards that once reflected one another in size and production. The common core of these dockyards were the shipdecks called “volti” in Italian and “göz” in Turkish – the sites where ships were built and then launched, which were positioned perpendicular to the sea and constructed in proportion to the ships. For the project Darzanà, a last vessel, a baştarda will be built at an abandoned volti at the Haliç dockyards in Istanbul, using the waste materials on site. It will then be taken to Sale d’Armi, the volti that hosts the Pavilion of Turkey, and re-installed there.

Derived from the Latin bastardo, a baştarda is a type of vessel that is a cross between a galley and a galleon, propelled by sails and oars. A symbol of the hybridity specific to the Mediterranean as a concept, it will be the vessel of the project. The baştarda will be a bridge between two shipyards, one which has been left to rot away in the megacity of Istanbul and the other springing to life only at certain times of the year in a museum-city. It will exhibit that which you cannot demarcate water or put a wire fence between words, all the while looking for the clues to transform fronts and borders into thresholds and spaces of consensus. Architectural practice is a field prone to confrontation, conflict, to drawing borders and withdraw, to quitting the profession and taking up other things. The question of whether or not it is possible to transform spaces of conflict into those of consensus by continuing the practice of architecture will be the main theme of the project Darzanà.

Contacts & Details
OPENING:
tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

CLOSING DAYS:
mon


ADDRESS
Arsenale, Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, Sale d’Armi, Campiello Tana, 21664-21680
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