Witnessing Gezi

August 15, 2014May 3, 2019 Thomas Büsch

Witnessing Gezi was created with the recordings of photojournalist Emin Özmen who witnessed the protests against the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park. Subsequently, the protests sparked supporting strikes across Turkey turning into a resistance movement of great importance for the country. Witnessing Gezi shows the human aspect of this civil resistance, a crucial event of the last 30 years in Turkey.

In 2014 Emin Özmen (1985) won the first prize in the Long Feature category of World Press Photo Multimedia Contest. On this occasion, as one of the parallel events of the World Press Photo 14 exhibition in İstanbul, some recent multimedia works from the World Press Photo Multimedia Contests will be screened including Özmen’s award winning work Witnessing Gezi at SALT Beyoǧlu, Istanbul, August 15th, at 6:30 pm.

SALT Beyoğlu

İstiklal Caddesi 136

Beyoğlu 34430 İstanbul Türkiye

Thomas Büsch

Filmmaker, Founding Member and Secretary General of diyalog, promotion of cultural exchange with Turkey. Since 2012 he is also project manager of InEnArt.

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Chapulling (Turkish: çapuling) is a neologism originating in the 2013 protests in Turkey, coined from Prime Minister Erdoğan's use of the term çapulcu (roughly translated to "looters") to describe the protestors.

The protests started with the occupation of the Istanbul Gezi Park by a small group protesting against the demolition of a symbolic park in the center of the City, finally it became a mass demonstration with a general strike on June 17th 2013.

The word Çapuling quickly caught on, adopted by the demonstrators and online activists, and became a viral video.

Many took the concept further by integrating the unique nature of the demonstrations and defined it as "to act towards taking the democracy of a nation to the next step by reminding governments of their reason for existence in a peaceful and humorous manner."

The Çapuling section of InEnArt describes and reflects the visual culture, humor and irony of the peaceful protestors (the Çapulcu) as it developed in many forms in Turkey during 2013.

The authors of InEnArt will publish regular one phenomen of the Çapuling Culture: e.g. the Duran Adam (Standing Man), the penguin, gas festival, the woman in red...

Read also: Why Turks are good in protesting!