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TR

Memory of the Other

September 2023 - June 2024
ISTANBUL

Women's Works Library Information Center Foundation (KEKBMV) is a Women's Memory Center where all women's productions in the Ottoman and Republican period in various fields such as literature, music, painting, academy, etc are kept as well as the private archives of these women. KEKBMV archives not only women's productions but also the memory of the Feminist Women's Movement, and digitally stores documents such as texts, posters and brochures of all activism activities. KEKBMV, where this archive is kept, is the unique and only Women's Library in our country, to which the academy, press, students and civil initiatives conducting women's research can refer. KEKBMV has so far only been the guardian of the memory of Turkish women.

However, migration, which is one of the most important problems of our world today, has changed and transformed Anatolia, which is a transit point, as well as our lives. The main subject of the project is to create an exhibition documenting the stories of 5 immigrant women artists, who came to Turkey as immigrants and continue all their artistic production in our country, and how immigration changed their art and lives, and to transfer the content of this exhibition to our digital memory.

Video footage of these 5 female artists telling their own stories will be displayed on screens in the exhibition venue. In the exhibition, both examples of their artistic production and personal belongings that they were able to preserve despite migration will be exhibited.

The aim is to create an exhibition narrative that sheds light on questions such as the dark side of the reality of immigration that deeply affects lives, the different impact areas of being an immigrant woman, and how immigration affects their art.

In the exhibition book, academic experts, who have worked on migration and women, will be requested to write articles and light will be shed on the socio-political background of migration.

Visibility support will be received by working with an agency, and a research company will run shootings of 5 female artists to provide socio-political background support. Additionally, we will work with an archivist in digitizing and collecting archive documents.

Women's Works Library and Information Center Foundation

Women's Works Library and Information Center Foundation, as stated in its founding charter, aims to "know the history of women well, present this information to researchers in an organized manner, and preserve today's written documents for future generations". It was founded by Aslı Davaz, Füsun Akatlı, Füsun Ertuğ-Yaraş, Jale Baysal and Şirin Tekeli. During the foundation phase, the legal establishment process of the Women's Works Library and Information Center Foundation was carried out by Attorney Ruhsar Erten, the financial establishment process was carried out by İmren Sipahi. The Foundation, which was acknowledged as a legal entity on March 8, 1990, became active on April 14, 1990, in a historical building in the Haliç-Fener district of Istanbul. This building, where the foundation continues its activities today, was allocated by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and the building's expenses, restoration and maintenance works are also covered by the Municipality. The Foundation, Turkey's first and only women-centred archive and library, is an important institution in terms of its collections containing works and documents belonging to or related to women in Turkey from the Ottoman Empire to the present day.

Connections: 

http://kadineserleri.org/

This page is published on 7 December 2023.