Walk Over the City

Artists:
Burçin Elmas (Turkey)
Polonca Lovšin (Slovenia)
Khadija Massaoudi (The Netherlands)
VahitTuna (Turkey)

Curator: Ece Pazarbasi

Walk over the City aims to create a mini Almanac of Contemporary History of Istanbul via soundwalks. It is focusing on the city of Istanbul through two primary yet different historical dimensions.Thanks to insurance maps dating back to the 1900s, it takes its audience years back, allowing them to compare both auditorily anddigitally today's Istanbul with the Istanbul of "once upon a time.”

The project entailed a research on historical maps of Istanbul.After intense work on insurance maps created by Jacques Pervitich and Charles Goad in the 1900's, approximately 260 sheets of their Istanbulmaps were merged and stitched together by professional urban planners to create an Istanbul that belongs to another time span.The collaged insurance map of Istanbul was then overlapped digitally withthe current map of Istanbul, in a web application format.This web application of overlapped maps forms the backbone of the project and is accompanied by four soundwalks created by the artists.

Following the instructions given on the old maps, the audience is asked to walk in the Istanbul of present time, doubling the time lapsewith the lapse of locations as well. The project is an alternative reading of history, urban planning, sociology, offering city residents an understanding the city and its history.

*With the kind support of Dutch Performing Arts, Performing ArtsFund NL, Kingdom of Netherlands and Republic of Slovenia – Ministry of Education Science, Culture and Arts.