News » Long live the brotherhood of districts!

“Culture is not only the work you produce and present, like capturing an instant in your photography and etc., but to get in touch with the cultural environment we live in and break estranging to one another, and that is why we based our process of work on spending time together, while producing together.”

We made an interview with the creator and the general coordinator of the project called Amongst Neighbours-01.

Interview/Photo by Orhan Gunesdogmus

What is the background of the kinship and the neighbourhood in between Cihangir and Mitte?  How did it kindle?

Necile Deliceoglu: First of all, we have started with the idea of constructing a web site of all the artists who live in the borders of Cihangir district and the art works of the area to be presented to whole world. Our first concern was ‘how to be able to present all these talented young artists on a web page’. When I started to research on the idea, I came across with the intention of Berlin-Mitte Municipality to make a contact with Beyoglu Municipality through Turkish Embassy to create a kinship in between. Then I started the talks with them.  

I was in search of a district equivalent of Cihangir and a foundation equivalent of Cihangir Neighbourhood Association; The Turkish Embassy was trying to link Mitte Municipality to Beyoglu Municipality on the other hand.  Then I offered to be the mediator between the municipalities. On my return to İstanbul, I organized meetings with Beyoglu Municipality in order to realize the meeting of both sides and to make an agreement of kinship of the two districts. In last October, the authorities and the head of the council of Mitte Municipality came to İstanbul.  When they went around in the district and learned about our association, they were impressed.

What kind of partnerships did kindle the kinship between Mitte and Cihangir?

Beyoglu and Cihangir is the art and culture centre of İstanbul.  We were searching for a district with the same qualities in Berlin. A district that is equivalent of Cihangir in this sense. Certainly, all the Berliners who were habitants of Berlin for long times, suggested that only district to be chosen was definitely Mitte. Because Mitte is the heart of Berlin.  Having the parliament, the universities, and 90% of the museums of the city within its periphery; with its art galleries and schools all together, Mitte is the area where all the cultural characteristics of Berlin or even Germany nestle.  

There are some similarities of population. Both have populations of 250 thousand to 300 thousand people. Both are equivalent in population aspect. Both shelter diverse people from all around the world.  There are people from 170 different countries living in Berlin-Mitte. 17% of the population is composed of people of Turkish origin.  There are many artists in first and second generation immigrants, working and successfully producing their art works in their workshops.  As we have not frequently contacted them until now, the Turkish immigrants living in there have not contacted or produced any work together with German foundations either. All have created their subculture in their own field, without meeting with the others. For example most of the organizations or foundations we met, did not know about the artists of Turkish origin, living in Berlin. With the help of this project, Turkish and German people living in Berlin are meeting up as well. They will all meet with the artists who will go to Berlin form Cihangir and this will be the joining component for all.  

I guess this is the main reason of making this project.

I lived in Germany for a long time and I perfectly know how people in Germany feel about Turkey. Even the second or third generation of immigrants, who were born and brought up there and let it be whether an artist or a graduate of a university does not matter, are all considered as citizens of third world. Thus, the contemporary art cannot tackle with this situation. In this perspective, our first goal is to explain them that İstanbul is home to many artists who have already proved themselves in contemporary art field. Certainly it is not sufficient just to tell this verbally. We will show this by going there, living and producing together there.

If we take Cihangir into consideration, how is Cihangir linked to the rest of the world, does it shelter internationally known artists?

We have a general idea about it. We do not have the detailed information either. We do know that London, Paris and Berlin are the most vivid art centres where you could find most of the artists who are linked to İstanbul, but we do not know them individually. Probably, we have an idea about the most famous ones, like everyone. When you ask to people in Berlin, they know Fatih Akın and Orhan Pamuk. When you ask in here, İstanbul, again only the most famous ones are pointed out. Unless the young artists have exhibitions over here or have their books translated in Turkish, there is no chance of being known or recognized.  I believe we can get over with this situation by going there, living and producing together. All the artists in here got excited when we first mentioned the project.  Projects started to be produced immediately with that excitement. Ideas were born. By the time the ideas turn into end products, I think they will know about each other quite a lot.

What will this project produce more?

The principle of the project that we plan for 3 years, right from the start, is a Turkish-English website. The website is designed as a site where all the artists from Cihangir could exist. Then with the announcement of İstanbul’s being chosen as the cultural capital, the project called Amongst Neighbours is born. We applied to İstanbul 2010 Cultural Capital Agency with the project proposal of Amongst Neighbours and it was accepted last summer. This project aims to take 18 artists from different disciplines to Berlin and to conduct 3 weeks of working process there. In the continuation of the project, the visit of artists from Berlin to Cihangir is aimed to produce work and in both processes collaborative works are aimed.  These collaborative works will be presented and documented. Briefly, we can say the project will be composed of multi-disciplinary collaborative works. An artist will be able to work in different fields of choice. They will all have partners from Berlin. They will be staying in their partners’ house and working in their workshops. The artists from Cihangir will supply the same facilities in return to the artists who will be coming from Berlin. The artists coming from Berlin will be in İstanbul at the end of May and stay in the houses of artists from Cihangir. The fundamental point of the project, as I mentioned before, is to share our living spaces.    Culture is not only the work you produce and present, like capturing an instant in your photography and etc., but to get in touch with the cultural environment we live in and break estranging to one another, and that is why we based our process of work on spending time together, while producing together. More than working together, we are going to go around in İstanbul and have beer together and the same applies for Berlin. Thus, genuine friendships can flourish among people, I believe.  

Is the project going to be only in between Cihangir and Mitte?

It was asked that why the project was being done with Berlin. This year is the 20th anniversary of the kinship of İstanbul and Berlin city municipalities. In this aspect, we chose to go to Berlin for the year 2009 and the Berliners to come over here.  Moreover, it was quite eligible for me to develop the relation in between these countries that I know by heart. This is going to be an experiment for us. If we achieve success in this project than we will be able to open doors to and embrace different districts of other countries in coming years.  First through the virtual world of internet then in reality we are planning to link ourselves to other neighbourhoods in Paris for example, or London, Athens and so on. We aim to make them accessible through internet first and then, whenever we get the opportunity of having contributors of this kind, to continue our meetings like in this project. The name of the project is Amongst Neighbours-01. Hopefully, we will find the chance of carrying on like 02, 03, 04, 05 to infinity. Our path has no borders. If we could form the kinship with all the countries all over the world, how happy we would be.