Ali Öz: Tarlabasi, Schändliche Stadt Event

TARLABA?I: A DEFILED ?STANBUL DISTRICT

Right in the heart of ?stanbul, a neighbourhood is being torn down!

The streets that make up the physical fabric of the neighbourhood, the buildings that give colour to those streets, its houses, its workplaces, and the men, women, and children who live there? a thousand and one varieties of life are being destroyed/annulled.

Tarlaba?? is being sacrificed in the name of ?gentrification?!

Tarlaba??: A Defiled Istanbul District brings us face to face with this process in its all vividness, a poignant reality which is hardly aesthetic.

Ali Öz, a veteran photographer, practically lived in Tarlaba?? for two years. He has recorded the ?destruction/annulment? process that the city and the neighbourhood have suffered frame by frame. He has revealed on every corner the face of Tarlaba??, which has suddenly just been ?vaporised? in the name of ?urban renewal?, street after street, step by step - from the Azerbaijani to the Pakistani and the African; from those who sought refuge in ?stanbul after the Bingöl earthquake to the stuffed mussels sellers; from the coffee-houses to the beer-houses, bars and cheap night clubs.

Through his lens, Öz has captured more than thirty thousand images of Tarlaba?? and its residents, whose lives he accompanied and whose destinies he witnessed for exactly one and a half years, day and night, in the hot and in the cold. After a small selection of his work was published on social media, the reality of Tarlaba?? became publicly known.

Tarlaba??: A Defiled Istanbul District, is a witness to how the city, neighbourhoods, streets and people have been defiled and lost.

Allan B. Jacobs says, ?The best streets are those that can be remembered. They leave strong, long-continuing positive impressions. Thinking of a city, including one?s own, one might well think of a particular street and have a desire to be there; such a street is memorable? The best [streets] are as joyful as they are utilitarian. They are entertaining and they are open to all. They permit anonymity at the same time as individual recognition. They are symbols of a community and of its history; they represent a communal memory.?

While our urban, historical and communal symbols and memories are being destroyed, we look once again upon our losses and our disgrace.