OPUS: A PARA-OPERA STRUCTURE
As part of Günaydın's residency at SAHA, the letters of "Mussakhan," cut from metal in the bespoke typeface “Hamaset” designed by Yetkin Başarır, were displayed at the İstanbul Manufacturer Retail Center. They were placed on the T-Wall Barrier mold, which is derived from the concrete barriers of the "Wall of Apartheid" that separates a large portion of the land from the rest of the Palestinian territory in the West Bank.
Introduction to OPUS
OPUS: A Para-Opera Structure is a long-term research-based foundation free of walls incorporating text, publication, and performing arts. I see OPUS as a scaffold to co-construct, support, and maintain relationships with people I collaborate with as it progresses. It will also provide on-site access to heights and areas that would otherwise be hard for an artist to reach. It represents research I will carry out over time on the intersection and interweaving of the following bodies: support, structure, justice, protest, resistance, truth, and event. OPUS attempts to contextualize a living structure that seeks ways to draw the line, withdraw, diverge, and rupture between these bodies and put the distinction between them under erasure. It is an attempt to engender a table of contents, which need not be rigid but should be seen continuously evolving through research and collaborations.
Conceptual Framework
To grasp “para-," imagine a para-opera. This prefix suggests "on the margin of, “next to," or "against," revealing relationships of proximity or contrast. I will use the concept tool, para-fiction, which raises awareness that truth and knowledge cannot be reduced to the medium in which they are presented. In other words, instead of unquestioningly accepting the truth and authenticity of things, para-fiction draws attention to the institutional and discursive structures that govern these media. This is not a way to dismiss truth but to highlight its connection with politics, which is the defining characteristic of the post-truth era. OPUS will attempt to blur the distinction between fact and fiction as a para-fictional strategy through make-believe. It attempts to look for models for connecting the presentation of facts and forms of intelligibility that blur the border between the logic of facts and the logic of fiction. After all, as Jacques Rancière once said, “Writing history and writing stories come under the same regime of truth.”
Current Fragment: Konvolut
Opus translates to "work" in English. The Latin plural word for opus is opera. OPUS is structured into fragments. The fragment I am currently working on is Konvolut—this term groups sections of Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project. Konvolut typically denotes a collection of related manuscripts or printed materials in Germany. Konvolut will be composed of passages. Each passage will be shared with an invited collaborator, who will rewrite it in their handwriting, incorporating O, P, U, and S. As OPUS progresses, the font family of “Hamaset” will expand with bespoke versions that conceptually fit each section. “Hamaset” is monumental, sharp, and prickly on the outside but soft and round on the inside to create dialectical tension. Additionally, it has only uppercase letters.
First Passage of Konvolut: MUSSAKHAN
The first passage: MUSSAKHAN, a national Palestinian dish: "ON THE EASTERN COAST OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, EXPLOSIONS LIGHT UP THE NIGHT SKY AS THE MOTHER PREPARES A SUMAC SPICED MUSAKHAN DISH WITH SWEET ONIONS, PINE NUTS, AND TABOON BREAD."
Passages use a bespoke typeface, HAMASET, designed for OPUS to evoke opera's grandeur. Hamaset, an Arabic loanword meaning “enthusiasm, excessive courage, heroism," has been twisted in contemporary Turkish to represent populism and demagogy by politicians. The letters of "Mussakhan" cut in metal in the bespoke typeface “Hamaset,” designed by Yetkin Başarır, are displayed in the İstanbul Manufacturer Retail Center on the T-Wall Barrier mold derived from the concrete barriers of the "Wall of Apartheid," which isolates a large portion of the land from the rest of the Palestinian territory in the West Bank. MUSSAKHAN turned into a monument and is permanently located at IMÇ.
* Passages may turn into objects or events over time. After all, passage inherently signifies movement through physical space, time, or conceptual ideas.
Powder-coated metal, 300 x 200 x 132 cm.
View from the "MUSSAKHAN " at IMÇ.
View from the "MUSSAKHAN " at IMÇ.
View from the "MUSSAKHAN " at IMÇ.