In search of the Pluriverse
Water supply in urban areas is vital, no exception for mega-city İstanbul where the water distribution system dates back to pre-Roman times. Water as a commons, as metaphor, as politics: the question is, who quenches whose thirst? After the eight warming up talks, this series of podcasts anticipates on the Thirst Walk, part of the closing activities of the 5th İstanbul Design Biennale. This thirst-provoking walk will provide perspectives on İstanbul's water situation from makers based in the Netherlands and Turkey.
*Due to the ongoing pandemic, this Travelling Academy trip happened partly online.
TNL! x Travelling Academy: Testing İstanbul’s Waters
Podcast teaser (15’), Sophie Krier & Erik Wong, 2021. Released 24 April online in the context of Not Quite a Finissage!, 5th Istanbul Design Biennale: Empathy Revisited.
Thirst Talk #1: The precious 2%
In this first episode Erik meets up with researcher and activist Li An Phoa, who walked 15.000 kilometers in the past 10 years to mobilise all stakeholders involved in the well being of rivers. A talk about the precious 2% of fresh, drinkable water there is on this planet.
Thirst Talk #2: Let’s ‘halletmek’ this
In this second Thirst Talk, Sophie meets designer and Istanbulite Nur Horsanalı, who spent a lot of time on the famous Galata bridge to observe fishermen and the social and economic structure that surrounds them. There is a lot of ‘halletmek’ going on there. What is halletmek? Tune in and find out.
Thirst Talk #3: A talk about ‘oozing’
In Thirst Talk #3, Erik has a conversation with Eva Pfannes, one of the founders of OOZE. A talk about ‘oozing’ as a slow process without boundaries. The conversation starts in a Rotterdam neighbourhood and ends in a temporary natural swimming pond in London. Dip in!
Thirst Talk #4: On spatial justice
In Thirst Talk #4, Sophie meets up with urbanist and İstanbulite Yaşar Adnan Adanalı, founder of the Center for Spatial Justice (Mekanda Adalet Derneği, MAD). A talk about how all spatial issues have social consequences. Also the idea of walking as a way to produce knowledge and the importance of ‘scale’ pop up during this short, animated talk.
Vertical Field Trip: digital hike
Before coming together for a recorded Thirst Walk, Wong and Krier's guests will get a sense of the geopolitics of the area surrounding İstanbul through a virtual field trip. Their guide will be artist Serkan Taycan, founder of HydroLab, a mobile platform that aims to connect art, ecology and engineering. Hydrolab does this by transforming water-related ecological problems into artistic gestures through research methods stemming from the field of engineering.
A digital hike to "Between Two Seas" with Serkan Taycan (zoom talk, 43’’), 2021. Moderation Erik Wong.
In this extra Thirst Talk, Sophie thus crosses – virtual – paths with Serkan Taycan who also initiated the Between Two Seas Walk: an artwork, a heritage walk and an open air laboratory at the same time. By combining the notion of engineering with an artistic practice, Taycan tries to make us aware of how spatial decision-making can have enormous cultural and ecological consequences.
Thirst Walk & Talk: on Water as continuity
With designer Nur Horsanalı, urbanist Yaşar Adnan Adanalı, river mobiliser Li An Phoa and architect Eva Pfannes from OOZE.
Finally Sophie and Erik meet up with Nur Horsanalı, Yaşar Adnan Adanalı, Eva Pfannes from OOZE and Li An Phoa at the same time, in virtual space.
After a synchronised one hour walk, following the THIRST WALK instructions Sophie wrote, we meet online in public space. Calling in from İstanbul, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague. Accompanied by the sound of mosques, playing children and a Dutch breeze, we talk about water inside and outside our bodies, about water as infrastructure, as lifeline, as disappointment, as part of our practice and as a continuous flow that connects everything and everybody across generations.
Thirst Walk: Bonus track
In four short audio notes, Sophie and Erik reflect on the Thirst Talk. Sophie brings in Arturo Escobar’s writings and Erik announces an epilogue of our İstanbul adventure…
Spin-off: Dersim’s waters
As part of the podcast episode Testing İstanbul’s Waters, impact maker and Dutch politician with Kurdish roots Kıvılcım Özmen shares the stories of her grandmother Besê Diribaş (1915-1996) about the layered meaning of water in Dersim. Eastern Anatolia has been home to many Kurds for centuries. Some continue to live there even after the Dersim massacre (1937-1938). Slow down, and let this circular tale of belonging cradle you. The original story is by Kıvılcım Özmen; the English narration is by İlke Ercan; and the song Ferfecir is by Metin and Kemal Kahraman. Many thanks to Ayşe Gül Altınay and Gülser İlgan who helped shine a light on Kurdish Alevism.
More than one body
As a way to take the pulse of İstanbul, in the podcast Wong & Krier focus on the city's relationship with water by exploring the tension between its historical and cultural uses and imaginaries, and its use as an instrument of policy-making.
Adult human bodies are 60% water. Perhaps this is why we speak of "bodies of water". In taking water as a lens, Wong & Krier align themselves with the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial (October 2020 to April 2021) entitled Empathy Revisited: Designs for more than one, which foregrounds practices of care, localism and new models of co-existence. In her description of one of the sub-themes, "More than one body (or design as immanence)", curator Mariana Pestana quotes philosopher Rosi Braidotti: "The post-human paradigm, beyond anthropocentrism, invites us to search new forms of social bonding and community building." (Braidotti, 2019. See also The New Academy) How, asks Pestana, may we think of design as a practice not suited just for one body but something that links many bodies, be they human, animal, vegetable or mineral? Empathy is the ability to sense with another living being - but how can we learn to attune ourselves better to other life forms, such as water?
Can we, if we carefully follow the multiple ways and imaginaries of water, arrive at life-enhancing forms of communal relationality (Escobar 2018) for the pluriversal city that is İstanbul?
Water as a commons versus water as a commodity
No city can thrive without water. İstanbul's many çeşme, public fountains, will be the case study. Most çeşme in İstanbul were built during the Ottoman period, often by female benefactors. "The word çeşme is used for a big fountain, but also for a tap in your house. It has to do with the notion of source." "The fountain is the visible part of a much larger infrastructure. The city never had enough water to feed its inhabitants. It always had to extend its infrastructure to make the water arrive". Fountains are material signs, interfaces pointing to the city's complex relationship with water, which goes back to Roman times (196 BC - 1453 AC) when water channeled from distant springs was collected in reservoirs and distribution tanks built on hilltop sites, and from there piped in different directions to cisterns, houses and public fountains. During the Ottoman period, Sultan Mehmed II established a water department, extended existing waterworks, and multiplied the city's fountains. Most of the water transmission lines built in Ottoman times are still in use today. Opinions on whether tap water is drinkable in İstanbul differ. As a result, packaged water is good business here. Hundreds of water sellers compete in price, including Hamidiye_, named after a water stream in the Belgrad forest, _produced since 1902 by an affiliate of İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality. Official numbers published in 2008 by İSKİ (İstanbul Water and Sewerage Administration) state that Hamidiye is channeled to 126 fountains, and 44 offices, hospitals and palaces.
İstanbul is fed by 18 surface water sources. While 60% of the population lives on the European side, 60% of the water sources are located on the Anatolian side. 500,000 m3 drinking water is carried under the Bosphorus from Anatolia to Europe every day. On average İstanbul consumes 2 million m3 of drinking water a day. 11 drinking water treatment plants and 22 waste water treatment plants connected by 15,000 km of pipes manage the daily flows of water.
With the growth and modernisation of the city, many of İstanbul's fountains fell into neglect. Following complaints from citizens, İstanbul's mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, elected in March 2019, recently took up the task of restoring and reactivating the city's fountains. Will this laudable effort enable, over time, a healthier and deeper relationship with the city's waterways?
Spin-off: Thursday Night Live! Building in, Around and in Association with Water
On 18 February 2021, architect Sean Leonard, the recipient of the first Tilting Axis/Het Nieuwe Instituut Research Fellowship, presented his research project on the relationship between architecture and water. During a special edition of Thursday Night Live!, Building in, Around and in Association with Water, moderated by Erik Wong Leonard was joined by Andrea Andersson, founding director and chief curator of Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought, and Dirk Sijmons, co-founder of H+N+S Landscape Architects.
See Warming up to the Pluriverse #5 : On Celebrating Smallness
Thursday Night Live! Building in, Around and in Association with Water (18 February 2021).
Further Reading
-
Özbay Özdeş. "The Politics of the Commons", published online at Müşterekler.sehak.org, Dec 2, 2018.
-
Standplaats İstanbul. Dig into Istanbul's history with Gerritsen Fokke, van der Heijden Hanneke (eds) (2018), Standplaats İstanbul_ Lange lijnen in de cultuurgeschiedenis van Istanbul, Amsterdam: _Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas. Tip from Ipek Sur and Quirine van der Hoeven, Netherlands Consulate General in İstanbul @nlinturkey
-
Bodies of Water. Neimanis, A. (2016). Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology (Environmental Cultures). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Retrieved November 12, 2020, from http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474275415. Tip from eco-artist Carmen Bouyer.