From live art to gallery presentation
Tomorrow is our last full day in Diyarbakir, and our visit will finish with the presentation of the work we have done these last 9 days. This presentation will take place in the Diyarbakir Arts Centre. What this means in practical terms is that we need to find a way of translating this work, which has been of the moment in its nature, into something that can be shown and discussed in a gallery space. This is as much a creative process as the development of the work in the first place.
We met this morning to discuss this problem, but before doing so discovered something interesting about the hotel in which we are staying. It had struck me as strange before that there are about 6 flights of stairs between the ground floor and the first floor, where the lounge (which we have been using as a working space) sits, with nothing obvious inbetween. Today we discovered why.
A door which has normally been closed was left open, and through it we found a mysterious set of stairs which lead down into no less than 3 abandoned and empty floors, stripped bare and thick with dust. It was quite an eerie environment. When I was very young I was always sure that the large and ancient house that my grandparents lived in must have secret doors and passageways somewhere (though I never found them), and so this sort of thing is really magical for me. I wonder to myself that there must be hidden places everywhere.
That aside, it was clear that we had a lot of work to do today. We settled pretty quickly on the idea of presenting several images using lightboxes, some more mounted simply on the wall, alongside some projections and a textual account of our working process. Quite a tall order to arrange in a day and a half.
By the end of the morning we had gathered together the necessary material, and set off towards a photo printing shop on the other side of town where one of the Turkish guys in our group could get us some sort of a discount. It was only when we got there that I realised that I had failed to copy all the files required onto the only USB stick we had brought, and had to rush back to the hotel for my laptop. This happens when you are stressed and rushed. That sorted, we paid a visit to a nearby sign shop to see about the graphics for our large lightbox, followed by a trip to a carpenter’s shop to arrange having a wooden box made for it; all to be ready in double-quick time of course.
Finally, we sat down for our final feedback session with the tutors, during which time they certainly seemed very positive and encouraging – but then I suppose there would be little point in being otherwise at this stage. Once again food had been provided, this time much better than yesterday, except for some chilli peppers which though delicious meant that nothing for some time afterwards could be tasted properly; this is once again a lesson I should have learned some time ago. A few beers and some planning for the morning rounded off a very hectic day.
