SULUKULE EXHIBITION OPENS IN HIDRELLEZ

Since 2005, the inhabitants of Sulukule evicted and the neighborhood was demolished by the Istanbul Urban Transformation Project. The exhibition will present the eviction and demolishment process of Sulukule with the photographs, videos, objects and written documents. The exhibition will open on 6 May 2009, the day of Hidrellez at Hafriyat –Karaköy.

As one of the demolished, evicted neighborhoods in Istanbul, Sulukule is a 1000 years old Romany settlement. It is one of the important urban spaces with its rich features as a neighborhood, its local identity and architecture. The collaboration of TOKİ and Istanbul Municipality which undertakes the eviction of disadvantage neighborhoods, does not only harm physical environment but also the cultural-social structure and communal identity. During this problematic process, Sulukule Platform did pursue an oppositional fight and created resistance in order to raise public awareness about the related legal and human aspects.

A lot of academics, researchers, press agencies and artists did support and still support Sulukule Platform. So, even though a major part of Sulukule already is evicted and demolished, the neighborhood is still of interest to the public, therefore this gives a chance to question the situation of unfair eviction.

Documents that reveal the effort of the communication process with municipality, the alternative urban plan prepared by the initiative STOP, researches that have been done in the district, press archive will be exhibited in this exhibition in order to explain in detail, the eviction and demolishment process.

The exhibition prepared by Sulukule Platform mainly aims to show that there are still a lot of things to do for Sulukule and other neighborhoods that suffer from state-led, forced urban transformation.

For Sulukule, For Neighborhoods…there is still another solution possible!

Exhibition Curators

• Sulukule Platform

Exhibition Artists

• Sulukule Platform