The Metropolis of Animals: Neighbours, Companions or Leftovers?
Sezai Ozan Zeybek

Talk

October 3, 2017 / 18:30

Places are heterogeneous: A multiplicity of beings co-habit the place: humans, dogs, trees, worms, mushrooms... We are thrown-together and we will be, at different times and speeds, again dispersed. Our social setting is a bubble that draws together forms of life and materials, yet destined to burst out as we move on. This talk explores the shifting relations in Istanbul between dogs and their humans from 19th Century onwards; looks at a number of episodes where they have become intimate companions, ignored neighbours, or discarded redundancies. All along, my goal will be to redefine the term ‘social’ by drawing attention to nonhuman entities in the city. In that spirit, I will survey the spatial arrangements and the ecological relations imminent to the city yielding different neighbourhoods that we share or compete over with other beings.

Dr. Sezai Ozan Zeybek is a geographer. In the light of postcolonial literature, he studies ‘trivial’ places, ‘insignificant’ people and ‘dead’ times. He follows up the stories of stray dogs, babies, or men who kill time in coffee shops day after day. All along, he scrutinises space-time conceptions of, mainly, capitalism. Recently, he has started to work on issues around ecology with a focus on industrial meat production. Additionally, he is interested in formations of militarism and different constructions of manhood. He has a blog in Turkish where he posts non-academic, seemingly "out-of-agenda" articles: http://ozanoyunbozan.blogspot.com/

Free of admissions, drop in. This event will take place in the auditorium. The talk will be in Turkish.

Temporary Exhibition

15th Istanbul Biennial

Pera Museum hosted the 15th Istanbul Biennial, organized by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by Koç Holding. The 15th Istanbul Biennial brought together artworks by 55 artists from 32 countries, all addressing different notions of home, belonging and neighbourhood.

15th Istanbul Biennial

Portrait of Martín Zapater (1797)

Portrait of Martín Zapater (1797)

Martín Zapater y Clavería, born in Zaragoza on November 12th 1747, came from a family of modest merchants and was taken in to live with a well-to-do aunt, Juana Faguás, and her daughter, Joaquina de Alduy. He studied with Goya in the Escuelas Pías school in Zaragoza from 1752 to 1757 and a friendship arose between them which was to last until the death of Zapater in 1803. 

Midnight Horror Stories: The Last Ferry <br> Galip Dursun

Midnight Horror Stories: The Last Ferry
Galip Dursun

I remembered a game as I was waiting in the passenger lounge for the ferry to arrive just a few minutes ago. A game we used to play at home when I was young, in my country that is very far away from here, a relic from the distant past; I don’t even remember how we used to play it. The kind of game that makes me feel a thousand times lonelier than I already am among the crowd waiting to get on the ferry.

Souvenirs of the Future

Souvenirs of the Future

You try to remember the future. A bird painted on the ceramic panel in a historical palace has found its place on the wall. The tiles of a church and a mosque have been painted on canvas. The pattern of a centuries-old ceramic plate appears before you on a velvet curtain.