Serial Craft, 2021

site-specific kinetic installation

Serial Craft highlights the mutually impactful relations between crafts and industry during the early industrialisation period of Turkiye.

Traces of adaptation of craftsmanship to industrialized production and its subsequent transformation are still visible in many workshops in Istanbul. On their ceilings, you can see the hand-made pieces of old pulley-and-belt systems that enabled the operation of multiple assembly stations thus increasing production.

In Turkiye, where industrialization began quite late compared to western countries, craftsmanship throughout the 20th century developed semi-industrial systems to meet the production demand and created the experiences cementing the foundations of today’s industry. With the progress of industrialization, the past role of craftsmanship, as well as its economic and cultural potential were ignored. Today, craftsmanship is romanticized by being reduced to an outdated cultural value; it is disappearing due to multi-layered problems and pressures caused by gentrification, urban transformation, population exchange, socio-economic policies and the industrial production system.

Produced in collaboration with craft studios around the city, the installation also underlines the economic and cultural potential of crafts for creative productions in a post-industrial society.

Commissioned by Yanköşe Contemporary Art Project
June – December 2021
Jury: Dilara Altınkılıç Kutmangil, Kaan Altınkılıç, Evrim Altuğ, Fulya Erdemci, Bülent Erkmen
Project coordinator: Tuna Ortaylı Kazıcı

#Crafted In Istanbul

Produced in Craft studios of Istanbul:

Turret Lathe: Nedim Köroğlu. Metal Lathe: Cemal Karadayi. Metal Plating: Sezgin Güven. Oven-dry Painting: Kamil Türnüklü. Metal Painting: Göksel Şimşek. Wood Painting: Ayhan Coşar. Ironsmiths: Hasan Ateş, Yaşar Yazıcı. Carpenters: Murat Baş, Cihan Özçelik. CNC Cutting: Yakup Bal. Lazer Cutting: Bülent Kurtoğlu. 

Installation photos: flu foto
Visual identity design: BEK Tasarım
Technical consultants: Sanlı Kihtir, Şeref Kemal Talaş
Installation crew: Fiksatif
Translation: Mehmet Özatamer

Download the brochure (English/Turkish)