LINK: www.sinopale.org

“The New Order of Things”

Sinopale 2 – The Second International Sinop Biennial

Evidently, with “The New Order of Things” we borrow Foucault’s title and would like to revere him within this artistic and cultural event launched in Sinop, the historical town at the most northern point of Turkey. It is self-evident that by using “new” in the title we are not intending to exceed our limits and trying to surpass Foucault’s wisdom. This “new” is employed possibly as an ambiguous term to imply the vanity of contemporary art system to continuously advocate the newness in art making, but also as a skeptical reflection on the state of political and economical affairs in our territory. In the age of inventing “a new” every five minutes which sometimes turns out to be a new crisis, we feel obliged to question the “political, economical and cultural new” that effects our everyday and lifetime.

Sinopale 2 (The International Sinop Biennial) will be realized August the 16th and September the 5th 2008, and presented with the concept text“ The New Order of Things”, by Beral Madra.

ARTISTIC COMITTEE
“Sinopale 2” T. Melih Görgün as the art director, and Dr. Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, Beral Madra, Monali Meher, Nezaket Ekici, Murteza Fidan, Heiner Holtappels, Emre Koyuncuoglu, Umut Südüak as the members invted a group of artist who will realize performances, show video art, design and installation.

SINOPALE EXHIBITIONS
Performances, Video art, design and installations of Metahaven, Roland Stratmann, Dejan Kaludjerovic, Rob Sweere, Marielle Videler, Jamie Mc Murry, Carlos Pina, Maria Comes, collabor.at, Julie Upmeyer, Atılkunst, Roza El-Hassan, Johannes Vogl, Adrien Tirtaux will be presented at the exhibitions section of Sinopale.

SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
The Documentary Exhibition section of Sinopale2 will host “The Myth of Documenta: 50 Years Documenta” which has been previously presented by Goethe Institute at Hacettepe University.

“Montevideo New Collection” is a video anthology programme curated by Heiner Holtappels. This programme consisting of significant video works has been produced with the support of Netherlands Media Art Institute.

LOCAL EXHIBITION
In “Yerel: Local” has been created with the aim to support and display the contemporary art production in Sinop. Curated by Murteza Fidan this exhibition will show the artworks from Alparslan Karaaslan, Burçak Konukman and Seyit Saatçi.

SINOPALE KID
Sinopale is opening a special section to develop children’s creativity. “Sinopale Kid”. The workshop under the leadership of Sonia Tanrisever, Esin Tanrisever and Gazi Selcuk entitled “Swedish Creativity Techniques and The Education of the Art Educators”s aims to update the art educators on contemporary art and facilitates their educational program through a workshop with children instigating a collaborative production. “Sinopale Kid” is also introducing Renan Koen’s sound workshop, “The Giant Inside Me” which advocates the necessity of using audio-visual methods for educational purposes.

SINOPALE WORKSHOPS
Sinopale Workshops are arranged and designed for young people, adults and art professionals.

In the “Playwriting and Staging Workshop for the Blacksea Region” which will be organized in collaboration with Kocaeli Municipal Theatre and directed by Emre Koyuncuoğlu with the contributions of Dilek Tekintaş, Hülya Karakaş, Zafer Gecegörür, Arif Akaya and Nihat Alptekin the participants from İzmit, İstanbul, Trabzon, Bartın, Sinop will practice writ ing and staging their own plays. People from Sinop will contribute to the plays as actors. Th plays will be shown on 18th-19th and 20th August.

Monali Meher and Nezaket Ekici will realize workshops for performance art that will be open to all female participants.

Heiner Holtappels will moderate a seminar entitled “Art in the Context, Time and Space” which is organized in collaboration with Montevideo, The Netherlands Institute of Media Arts.

FANZIN
“Fanzine and the City” is a fanzin production for Sinopale2, dealing with the daily life in the city. This will be curated by Umut Südüak for the young designers such as Dileda Sipahi, Yeşim Endes, Serkan Avar, Burcu Dayanıklı, Ceren Aksungur who will observe the daily city life, share their experiences with the public and produce this fanzin.

SINOPALE PRODUCTION AND SUPPORTERS
Sinopale 2, International Sinop Biennial is organized by Informal Görgün Network and European Cultural Association.

Sinopale 2 is supported by Sinop Municipality, İstanbul Consulate General of Sweden, Austrian Cultural Forum, İstanbul Consulate General of The Netherlands, Goethe Institut Ankara, BM Contemporary Art Center, Kocaeli Municipal Theater, Chameleon Design and Project Management, Nuova Icona, Sinop Chamber of Commerce, Görsel, Simge Antalis, Beko, Graphis Matbaa, Association of Sinop Businessmen, Onurlar Co., Onurlar Marin, Delphi-Atılım, Onur İnşaat ve Pazarlama, Sinop Young Businessmen Association, Kumsal Otel, Sinop Antik Otel, Association of Supporting Social-Cultural Life.

 

Conceptual  TEXT for Sinopale2

Evidently, with “The New Order of Things” we borrow Foucault’s title and would like to revere him within this artistic and cultural event launched in Sinop, the historical town at the most northern point of Turkey. It is self-evident that by using “new” in the title we are not intending to exceed our limits and trying to surpass Foucault’s wisdom. This “new” is employed possibly as an ambiguous term to imply the vanity of contemporary art system to continuously advocate the newness in art making, but also as a skeptical reflection on the state of political and economical affairs in our territory. In the age of inventing “a new” every five minutes which sometimes turns out to be a new crisis, we feel obliged to question the “political, economical and cultural new” that effects our everyday and lifetime.
We are not doing anything new in the sense of organizing an art and culture event. In fact it is very similar to the one’s that are being realized in many small towns of EU, as an obligation to the cultural policies related to the preservation and stimulation of local cultures. Thus, with its heavily loaded history of power interactions between rulers and governments Sinop is one of the most emblematic cities inTurkey and in the Black Sea region and reflects all kinds of stereotype orders of things. Precisely this ambiguously political history and present status of Sinop leads us to think about the order of things. The subtitle of Foucault’s book is “an archaeology of the human sciences” and Foucault is referring mainly to sociology, cultural history incorporating labor, language and nature. This subtitle is also pointing out our goal to use an art event to deal with sociology, culture and environment.
According to interpreters (*) Foucault was very much involved in attacking the existing order. He mercilessly convicted today and made provocative proposals of creating everything from the beginning. While he is against the strategies of the existing order and hits this order in its most weak points, he is not doing this to replace this order with another one. For him the only alternative is to oppose; and, this continuous opposition is a kind of constant revolution. Living as artists, curators, art experts of an unstable and conservative culture industry in a region of wars, crisis, economic manipulations and clash of religious convictions, we too agree to continuous opposition as a standard way of working. In the first Sinop biennale, we employed the title” The Thing” with the intention to make the public aware that something will enter into their daily life; this something being the sum of different strategies of contemporary art (performances, workshops, in situ works and discussions). We suppose that this first attempt had its positive reverberations, so that this year we will have a more eager collaboration of local institutions and individuals.
In another way we wanted to play our role as interrupting agents on the continuity of the orders of the past still prevailing in the collective memory of the Black Searegion. Or, to play our role in creating awareness on the impact of the present order of things. Throughout the second half of 20^th century, the ethnic, folkloric, traditional and geographical similarities and affinities all around theBlack Sea could not prevent the isolation of the cities and their inmates from each other. The order of polarization and imposition conditioned by Soviet Russia andUnited States has changed since the fall of theSoviet Union, leaving behind countries that should habituate themselves into new orders, in to neighborhood relations and into political, economic and cultural communication. Up till now politicians and bureaucrats advocate regional cooperation and resolution of the so called “frozen conflicts” which is an important factor of security and stability in the region and would have a serious impact upon the development of the regional cooperation (**) There is a comprehensive declaration of goodwill signed in2006 in Bucharest (***) However, the reshaping of the geopolitical and economical map of the region generated new realities and new configuration of international relations, that not necessarily brought new prospects for the people of the region. The perceptions, concerns and hopes in the region in regard to this new map are still perplexed. The process of opening itself to the world goes through building a democracy and market economy, but also through serious transnational threats – or orders – such as new forms of poverty, neo-nationalism, terrorism, Islamic extremism, and drug trafficking etc…
BERAL MADRA

* Allan Megill, Aşırılığın Peygamberleri (Prophets of Extremity), Çev.Tuncay Birkan, Bilim ve Sanat Yayınları (1998), s.292-299
 **http://www.bsec-organization.org/main.aspx?ID=Chairmanship  
***http://www.blackseaforum.org/joint_declaration.html