Klima Biennale: Waters of Mesopotamia Event

Panel discussion with Rojda Tuğrul and Ahmet Zirek
(In English and Kurdish)

The panel focuses on the transformation that has occurred in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the last decade due to political and social reasons. “What was the ecological management model of local governments and what was being done for ecological municipalism, especially in the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin in Kurdistan.”

Rojda Tugrul is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Vienna, whose practice focuses on the notion of identity in relation to space and time. Her doctoral dissertation sought to analyse the effects of war on ecological and cultural heritage within the socio-political framework of Kurdish territories. Whilst examining the spatial transformation and deterioration of the habitat as a trace of change in the culture and collective psyche of society, her work also explored the politics of art, the autonomy of artistic representations, and the power of images. Rojda holds an MSc in Veterinary Studies and she graduated from the PhD-in-Practice Program in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Ahmet Zirek was born in 1961 in Mazıdağı district of Mardin. I graduated from Anadolu University Faculty of Economics in 1987. I completed Pedagogical Formation Training at Diyarbakır Dicle University Faculty of Education in 1987-1988. He started working as a civil servant in Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality in 1984. He worked in many units of the municipality. He served as the General Secretary of Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality between 1999-2006 and as the General Secretary of GABB (Union of Southeastern Anatolian Municipalities), which was formed by our regional municipalities, between 2006-2009. He was among the founders of the Local Governments Academy within GABB, with the aim of building a Democratic, Ecological and Gender-Liberal local government model. He gave training as a local government expert at the Academy established between 2007-2009. He has been living in Vienna for 7 years.