Kentsel Kamusal Mekânda Yaratıcı Aktivizm: İzmir Darağaç Kolektifi’nin Sanat Üretim Pratikleri

Abstract

Periodically witnessing various disentanglements in the ordinary rhythm of daily life, urban public space is constantly reproduced by tactical practices or strategic interventions that can interfere the established power structures. In all respect, art production practices pave the way for daily activities, collective activities, common spaces and neighborhood organizations. Focusing the productions of Darağaç Collective, this study aims to examine the ways in which art production practices reproduce urban space and everyday life in the neighborhood. The potential of these interventions, which are considered together with the productions of the initiatives in which the collective cooperates, to create great changes are examined by associating them with their permanence-temporariness qualities in terms of their strategic-tactical goals.Within the scope of this study, the Darağaç Collective's exhibition Darağaç IV: Lüzum, together with the projects, Spinning Triangles (by SAVVY Contemporary), New Alphabet School (by Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Mahalle@İzmir (by Kültür için Alan and Geniş Açı Project Office), Bellek Haritaları (by Karantina), and İyi Saatte Olsunlar (Hayy Open Space, Darağaç Collective, and Pelesiyer) are examined. In line with the data obtained by the case studies method, these art practices are analyzed through five main points: ways of changing the rhythm of everyday life, the characteristics of the thresholds they create; ways of creating an atmosphere for social participation, emphasizing creative activism; and the place and scale of collective practices. Through these examples inquired within the framework of the rhythm of everyday life, thresholds, social interventions, creative activism and forms of intervention, the potentials of creative activist art production practices to transform urban public space is revealed.