05.04-26.04. 2003 – 20 minus minutes – Platform Garanti, Istanbul (TR)
Eksi(K) 20 Dakika / 20 Minus Minutes, entrance view
Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul 2003
Adress:
Istiklal Caddesi No: 276 34340
Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey
Tel: 0212 293 23 61 / Fax: 0212 293 30 71
e-mail: platform@garanti.com.tr
www.platform.garanti.com.tr
Gallery Opening Hours:
Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday: 13:00 – 20:00
Friday-Saturday: 13:00-22:00
In December 2002 we were invited by the Dutch foundation BKVB (foundation for Architecture, Art and Design) for a 6 months residency-period in Istanbul in the new Contemporary Art Center; Platform Garanti. During the residency we realized two projects: Searching for a Clay Language! Searching for a Clay Language! in collaboration with the artist group Oda Projesi (The Room Project) and the children of the neighbourhood, which are involved in Oda Projesi (at that time age 5 – 18) and 20 Minus Minutes in Platform Garanti, where we transformed the exhibition space into an experiential and performative environment – a playground-laboratory.
20 Minus Minutes included and involved visitors, as well as the gallery’s immediate surroundings and reflected on current socio-political issues. The war on Iraq was starting and the city’s atmosphere was tense, with police and military patrolling the streets. The situation of 20 Minus Minutes was organic, fluctuating, porous and heterogeneous and the different constellations would create a space in growth and decay. With the work we made use of the gallery’s special location in the busy street of Istiklal (Istanbul´s busiest pedestrial street) and it’s open public policy, welcoming people of all generations and from all levels of the society, (there is no entrance fee). We would visit the space frequently ourselves to observe how people would react to the work and how they would use it. Along with public visiting the show, kids would regularily visit the space on their way back home from school to play and hang around a little. It was a situation in a state of definition; open for different use and interpretation. To emphasize that we asked for the advertising banners out-front, normally bearing the name of Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center and the title of the show and the name/s of the artist/s, for this show not to be used. So many people would enter without knowing they were entering a Contemporary Art Center.
The different constellations making up the space where different in their function; like in the ongoing flux of a street, a place where you have to adventure your self into – to get to know it’s moods and rules. We approached all the senses with the work and there was no defined border between the constellations which were overlapping in the space.
The last day of the show we organized a tee party in the environment and repeated Eating Our Words, a happening we did earlier at the opening of Searching for a Clay Language! Searching for a Clay Language!, the project we did with Oda Projesi and the Oda kids. The happening consisted of serving baked bread in the form of words and sentences (mix of sence and no-sence) we had invented and developed together with the kids to be able to communicate without a prior common language.
Post-it text intervention on the facade of Platform ITNARAGON….ITNA
Alpy and friends playing in the Wishing-Tree-Play-Atom
Overview with Wiggling Chrome Penis in forground
Overview upper floor, with elements from the project Searching for a Clay Language we worked on in collaboration with Oda Projesi and the kids of Oda Projesi.