“Territory Dispute”

İstanbul, 2010

I found for myself an ‘in-between place’ and an ‘in-between object’. So easy! The city, once again, serves as a construction site for a confused dream of whose beginning and the end are equally ambiguous. Her poorness is impudent like her gentrification. The city becomes noble. Such a bad ‘destiny’. So once more, (I didn’t) want(ed) to foresee ‘what’ will stop where, who will be with whom, which place will look like which other place. This is my weariness of forecast about the past as well as the future.

The reason is ‘I can only say farewell to this city’. It is not easy to say good-bye to a city while living with it. It is not a coincidence that a city builds its communal tradition through ignorance. The attempt of the denier and the denied ones to substitute each other, is not an irony. And, this is not an exotic novel of love, at all.

The city traces over me
My traces over the city
Duel

My concerns are already waiting for me. And now? which places are ‘suitable’ for whom. Why everything at this city must ‘resist’ to time and space. By whom the recent good and new bad will be selected among. The ‘paganic’ paradox between commodity of art and its balance of worth. Becoming of the public space to a scene neglecting common utility. ‘Valuable goods’ collection blocking the district’s streets in the morning of September 7, 1955. A database that allows me to follow the incoming and outgoing migrations of the city. My empathy towards the uneasy elegance of the travesty who is fighting against her street . The cliché of ‘tell me your district, I will tell you who you are’. The good-bye kiss I could not give to my love in the middle of the street. Moreover, please do not touch the tragedy! Istanbul is nothing without the tragedy inside.

A contribution of mine: Istanbul is Istanbul for the fact that nobody living with her is able to live as he/she wants.

Tayfun Serttaş, invites you to see his chandelier he has recently bought for his living room.