The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

The day had finally arrived for the presentation of our work. This was to take place at 6.00pm in the Diyarbakir Arts Centre, and would take the form of a temporary (that is, for this evening only) exhibition.

Yesterday we had of course been very busy organising all sorts of things that were necessary for this to happen, and today was basically more of the same. Since I am the only native English speaker in our group, I was responsible for writing the text which was to accompany the presentation; this was no easy task, and ended up taking most of the morning. All the while people were coming and going with the various bits that we needed – very exciting but also leading to some frayed nerves as some things were not quite as expected.

Once the text was written, myself and Mehmed headed out to an internet café so that he could translate it into Turkish. This was necessary because of course the keyboard on my laptop is missing all the extra characters in the Turkish alphabet, which would have made the whole process much much slower. I was amazed at how quickly he attacked the task, translating about 2 A4 pages of very wordy art-speak in less than an hour, with very little clarification needed from me.

I must admit that it was really nice to see something that I had written translated into a language of which I have no knowledge whatsoever. It made the whole business seem very professional, something properly international. Unlike most western European languages, there is next to nothing that you can as an English speaker recognise in Turkish, which makes it all the more mysterious.

The time flew by relentlessly and the 6pm deadline approached with much still to do. It is always the way with such things that dispite the best intentions, there will never be quite enough time for what you would really like to do, especially so in this instance since we have had less than 10 days to research, produce and display a considerable body of work. I was disappointed with a few aspects of our presentation, all the more so because with another 1/2 day or so they could easily have been improved. Niks aan te doen, maar.

I was quite astonished by the size of the crowd who came to see the show, several hundred at least and more than enough to ensure that the gallery space was packed. What was strange about this is that the kind of atmosphere that makes itself felt at such events is something I would associate normally with countless gallery openings attended back in Scotland or the Netherlands, and to experience the same situation here where my experiences otherwise have been very out of the ordinary and foreign was something of a surprise, though not unpleasant.

Unfortunately it was necessary to dismantle the exhibition almost as soon as it had finished, and there came at once the realisation that this was it; the project was finished. It has been a remarkable and intense 10 days, and for it to be over just like that was of course a wee bit anticlimactic.

I would personally have liked to have gone for a meal or something with everyone for the project, so we could have at least had the chance to talk before our departure the next morning, but for some reason best known to the organisers we found ourself in the cheesiest disco in town (maybe the only one in town?) which was playing the sort of awful shit that is ten-a-penny everywhere, except this time mostly in Turkish. I hate to sound like grumpy old grandad in the corner, but you could hardly hear yourself speak, the drinks were expensive, and frankly I would have rather been back at the hotel drinking a beer on the sofa. Before too long it was apparent that several others felt the same, and so this is what we did instead.

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.

There were two pieces of work which we still wanted to complete, both of which needed some preparation. Firstly, a plan (originally Mízgin’s) had been developed to produce an sequence of images of people walking through one of the city’s gates, which would then be stitched together into a video to be projected onto a wall in the prison courtyard. Some slides had been taken yesterday, as explained, but it proved impossible to develope them here in Diyarbakir and so plan B was to do the same digitally. The idea was to create a link between inside and out, to open up what is and has been a closed space.

Myself, Mei-yu and Mehmed set off this morning to take the necessary photographs, which did not take so long, but our second task ended up being a little more complicated. We needed a set of small amplified speakers, which we thought would be easily obtainable from one of the many small shops and market stalls selling electrical goods in the city. Unfortunately, the prices that were being asked were a bit high for the sort of shitty little speaker that you could get for about €5 back home, until it became obvious that they were asking higher prices when myself and Mei-yu (the foreigners) were present; if Mehmed went into the shop on his own, we were more likely to get a bargain. Disappointing, but perhaps understandable.

We eventually succeeded in finding a set for 10 Turkish Lira (about €6). The speakers were needed to realise the second of the two works mentioned, which was to reproduce the sound of a woman singing zilgit, a traditional Kurdish form of singing which resembles something like a native American war cry; the idea was to play back this sound within the empty walls of the prison, where the acoustics would hopefully ensure a powerful effect.

There were also some other practical considerations which needed to be taken into account. Luckily there was a working power socket within the jail (quite strange for what is basically a derelict building), but we still needed to find and borrow a long extension cord, as well as borrow the projector (or beamer as the Dutch call it, even when speaking English!), edit together the photos, and set everything up.

After some intensive sound and video editing in the hotel, myself and Machteld rushed through the pouring rain which had developed at this point (not bad after a week of fine weather, I suppose) to set everything up and record the results before it got dark. On the way we ran into the others, who had been caught in the rain whilst finishing off the other work and who wanted to go back to the hotel for some dry clothes; this meant we were left on our own in the old prison as it began to get dark outside. I suddenly realised that this was really stupid, since with my laptop, Machteld’s laptop and the beamer, not to mention various cameras and camcorders, we were a sitting target waiting to be robbed of €1000’s worth of stuff. There were a bunch of really dodgy looking characters hanging around the jail (one smoking an enormous joint which we gratefully declined a sook on), but as it happened nothing terrible occurred. It’s the same carelessness which got me my bike nicked a few weeks ago, it must be said, and I should know better.

I was really pleased with the results of the projection and zilgit sounds, but it was really difficult to record these results – I mean, what I am talking about is a video of a projection of a video, in very low light, which is certainly a challenge. We got a few decent images, though, which should be enough.

In the evening there was yet another lecture, this time in the hotel rather than the arts centre thankfully, which meant that there were beers and food readily available afterwards (thoughfully ordered in advance by the tutors). After this and a briefing about Thursday’s presentation I headed upstairs for an early night, the first of the trip and definately overdue.

As far as I could tell our meeting with the tutors yesterday afternoon had gone quite well (although Machteld later told me that she had thought the opposite), and so I began today on something of a high. That said, I was also experiencing that terrifying feeling that can happen when things are going well (or at least OK), the feeling that one false move will bring the whole thing crashing down. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, it is called. At the very least I was worried that our energies had peaked too soon, with several days of the project left to run, and that we would not be able to progress from here.

We began this morning by splitting into two parties, one to take slides of a prominent gate in the city (for another work which we hope to realise tomorrow), while the rest of us went shopping for coloured pigment (due to yesterday’s limited availability…), balloons, and the various other things that would be needed to realise the plans that we had made.

The vague idea with the balloons was to attach them to one or all of the trees in the prison courtyard, perhaps with a message or something similar attached to each one, but due to practical limitations such as the unavailability of helium or a long enough ladder we ended up joining them to only the lower branches of the most suitable (ie photogenic) looking tree.

This in fact produced quite a satisfying result, and the arrival of some small children as with yesterday added to the atmosphere of playful experimentation. It has been said that the aim of the artist is to capture the innocence of a child, and it is a point of view that I am certainly drawn towards; to approach the creation of things and ideas without prejudice and without precondition.

We got the children to experiment colouring the inside of our mini-Diyarbakir with the various coloured pigment powders which we had bought this morning. What was nice was that the results sit very nicely with the balloons in the tree, another happy coincidence which perhaps looked more planned and considered than it really was.

Thanks to Machteld and Mei-yu for some of these photos.

Later we had arranged for a larger group of children to come sing some traditional Kurdish music within the walls of the prison, which would have been quite nice acoustically, but in the end the boisterous little angels were impossible to control and were much happier running around bursting balloons and basically doing what they felt like, which if as an adult you do not aspire to then there is surely something wrong with you.

After the endless discussion about which I have complained so much and yesterday’s experiments, we finally agreed to go and make something today. We had decided upon the site of the old prison, and one idea at least which had got people interested was to build a miniature version of the famous walls which surround the old city within the central courtyard. Like many such ideas it was lacking a “ok, but then what?” answer, but it had promise at least.

We started by plotting the outline of this structure in the dirt; this action itself produced some nice results in terms of photos and video. Sometimes in art the simplest interventions can work the best.

After this we began moving barrowloads of stone from an enormous pile outside the prison to within, and started constructing a small wall, perhaps 30cm x 30xm in dimension and covering an area of 5m x 3.6m.

What was lovely was that almost as soon as we had began with this task, curious people started turning up and asking us what we were up to (Mehmet, out translator, was unfortunately away so we weren’t able to answer), and in general they seemed to be pleased that someone was making some sort of active intervention in a space which had previously been associated with imprisonment and military rule.

Once again spontaneous things took over as a group of small boys arrived with a football and used our wall as a space to play in. Later the same and other children expressed a desire to help us with the construction, and began energetically filling our borrowed wheelbarrows with stones and moving them for us, to such an extent that we became a little ashamed of exploiting such (admittedly willing) child labour. All in all it was certainly an interesting day and for me at least it really worked as an interesting piece of live art. What is especially important was that today was the first time since arriving here that I felt like I was doing something more than being simply a western visitor leering in a voyueristic way at the destitute locals.

It is the quirky little things here that I find the most intesting. For example, we had talked about the possibility of painting the stones of our little wall, and so Mei-yu and Mehmet had set off to buy some pigment. Despite the fact that this is a Muslim county, there were not so many shops open on a Sunday, and this proved not as easy as expected. Finally they found a shop that was open, but which had only bright red and bright blue paint.

What I find lovely about this is that back home a shop would have paint in every colour of the fucking rainbow or none at all (because it was not a paint shop). Here there are these odd surprises.

Our tutors arrived as it was getting dark to give some feedback on our progress, and they seemed very happy with what we were doing. This was certainly reassuring after so many days of stumbling about in a fog of vague and conflicting ideas. We shall see what happens next.

Since Ólafur, one of the workshop leaders, is leaving in the morning we all went to have some dinner together. The thing is, the project had been able to achieve sponsorship from a particular restaurant, although only for the local students, and so for the last 4 days we have been eating there and nowhere else. Fine, I suppose, but the vegetarian options are limited to one single dish (cheese Turkish pizza), and I am frankly getting sick of it. I’m prepared to deal with it for now, though.

Afterwards we once again ended up having a few beers in the hotel lounge, and two of the group of Turkish guys from last night were also there. Before we knew what was happening, they had brought a whole chocolate cake to our table as a gift. In what seemed to be some sort of tradition there were what looked like chestnuts on top of the cake, one for each female member of our party, and the guy who brought the cake proceeded to pick them up one at a time with a fork and feed them to the girls. Boys could feed themselves, and in fact the cake was delicious.

This sort of thing is certainly yet another culture shock, but a nice one nonetheless. If a stranger brought you cake in the Netherlands (or Scotland), would you eat it? Probably not, but then this is hardly worth thinking about because it wouldn’t happen in the first place.

Over the last few days I have been getting increasingly frustrated with the amount of talk, talk, talk which has been happening. For example, yesterday we spent most of the day in the hotel lounge doing just that, when I have been personally itching to get out and do things. I think perhaps that this is because in my normal practise I do not sit around endlessly thinking about what I do but instead usually just try things and see if they work (if so great, if not try something else, and so on). Of course, in a collaboration situation like this one that is not going to cut it, so it’s just a case of getting on with it whether you like it or not.

We were finally able today to get out and try some things, though. We had been talking about using the action of physically cleaning a section of waste ground near to the prison which had been chosen as a possible site for out art work, and this is what we decided to start by doing. We borrowed some wheelbarrows from a helpful man with a small shed nearby (he had about 7 of them, not sure what for), but before we could start doing anything a crowd of children had gathered round and decided to start helping us. We were happy for this to happen, as any kind of spontaneous event like this was bound to open up interesting artistic possibilties. What exactly is still unclear, but any kind of action at least was a start.

We spent the rest of the day trying out other ideas, including interviewing some old men passing by who it turned out had spent time in the building mentioned when it was still a prison. One claimed that he had been jailed for killing someone in connection with wanting to marry a girl whose family did approve of such a union, and that upon his release had married her and now had 10 children (6 boys, 4 girls). Nonsense, maybe, but very romantic.

Later on we happened upon a group of men doing a traditional dance in the poor quarter of the city, complete with traditional Kurdish music. There was a large crowd of people sitting out in the open air watching this phenomenon; they were very welcoming to us, bringing little stools and asking us to sit down, offering cigarettes, and generally being very hospitable.

There were two lectures to be attended in the evening, which it turned out were not so exciting as I had seen most of the work before. We’re only here for another week or so and this is not really how I would choose to spend my time given the choice.

Back at the hotel we were having a few beers and were about to go to bed when some Turkish guys sitting in the hotel lounge called myself and Bani over to have a drink with them; they were drinking Raki, a strong Turkish spirit. They were nice guys, but it was one of those very surreal conversations which happen when neither group can speak the other’s language – we managed to find out that one has an uncle in Germany, that they were mostly from Istanbul, and that they support Fenerbahçe. Quite a surreal experience, but not the first to be so here and likely not the last.

The last two days have been occupied with more in depth investigation of the city in smaller groups, during which time we are supposed to have begun forming plans about the sort of work we would like to be producing. In honesty I am not very good at collaboration, and these days have been quite tough. I think though really that something has to be difficult sometimes to be worthwhile, and I’m trying to look at things positively. Hopefully as we begin to actually make some work over the next few days things will sort themselves out.

We have had some interesting lectures during the last two evenings, during which among other things we have learned that the letter “W” is banned in Turkey. No joke; it occurs in Kurdish but not in Turkish, so this ban is a way of getting at the Kurds by the back door. Weird and also tragic.

Last night (Thursday) we met a very friendly guy who took a few of us to a restaurant outside of the centre, which was once again something of a contrast in that it is the sort of place I would be busy working on during my previous existence as an interior designer; very European and certainly having little in common with the places we have been otherwise eating in. What is very noticeable is how polite and friendly people are – on two occasions I have been with locals who have not only ensured we knew where we were but who insisted on walking us right to the door of our hotel.

People take every opportunity possible here to stop and drink tea, and the waiters in our hotel seem to automatically bring a tray whenever we sit down for a minute. It’s a very strong kind of black tea which really needs sugar, and is always served in a small figure-8 glass as can be seen in some of the earlier photos. It’s a nice ritual which I could certainly get used to.

Culture shock number two came at 4.20am as I was woken by the sound of the call to morning prayers from one of the mosques in the locality of our hotel. In the still of the night the haunting yet melodic sound echoing through the empty streets outside was quite something. Spooky is the only word for it, if that is not demeaning of its importance to the faithful. I fell back to sleep with my heart racing.

After breakfast we met with the artists from Diyarbakir and nearby who we were to be working with, before setting out around the town to get a feel for the places we are to be working. Diyarbakir is surrounded by 9km of walls, apparently 3-5000 years old, and was also central to the recent (and in some senses ongoing) conflict between the Kurdish separatist PKK and the Turkish army. This conflict has displaced very large numbers of people form the Kurdish countryside to the city, where many now live in very deprived housing of a standard which is as far as I know unknown in Western Europe. The scenes we came across on the street were the sort of things I had only seen previously on TV – women baking bread in outdoor ovens, children running around in swarms trying to sell packets of tissues, and old men pushing wooden carts filled with old rags, scrap iron, and both dead and live chickens. It’s hard not to feel uncomfortable in this sort of situation, but the people were nonetheless friendly and seemed pretty happy despite their obvious poverty.

We visited a former army base which had also been used as a prison, the neighbourhood mentioned, and also the main shopping streets of the old town, before leaving the city walls to head towards the newer part of the city; the contrast could not have been greater, with the afternoon’s meeting place at the Diyarbakir Arts Centre being situated in a modern shopping centre. We sit here just inside Asia, but not so far from the edge of Europe, and this frontier position certainly shows. Oh, and following from my earlier and totally unrelated story about the World’s Biggest Rucksack, the shopping centre has what is probably the World’s Biggest (and therefore Best) Bouncy Castle. At times like these I wish I was 10 again!

Oh, and there is wireless in the hotel, which is of course very welcome.

Met the others at around 10.45am at Schiphol before the usual check in/passport/X-ray/waiting about shit that makes me hate flying. Unfortunately a direct flight to Diyarbakir was not possible, and the connections did not exactly work in very well, so we ended up hanging around Istanbul airport for about 3 hours without much to do (except drink a beer at €8 or so).

We finally arrived at around 10pm. I got my first minor culture shock when told by a security guard to delete pictures I had taken of the others waiting at the baggage belt; as it happened, we were 2 bags down, which is perhaps not too bad for 13 people travelling such a long way.

It was too late to do much with the rest of the day aside from eat something, which involved a bit of negotiation on the part of the veggies of the group. What eventually arrived was worth the wait, though; some lovely salad with bread and yoghurt followed by a strange mixture of beans, egg, and what looked like chips (as in fries) in some sort of sauce. Strange but nice.

So, off today to Diyarbakir in south-eastern Turkey (or Kurdistan, depending on who you ask) to make some art with other folks from the DAI, alongside local artists. Quite excited about the whole thing, but still no idea about what is actually going to happen. We don’t arrive ’til pretty late tonight, so it will be a long journey indeed. No idea when I’ll next have an internet connection, so this could be the last post for a while.

Diyarbakir