[ISEA2011] Panel: Arzu Ozkal & Clau­dia Ped­er­son – De­c­la­ra­tion of Sen­ti­ments/Gün

Panel Statement

Panel: Mind the Gap

De­c­la­ra­tion of Sen­ti­ments/Gün is a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Arzu Ozkal and Clau­dia Costa Ped­er­son.  This pro­ject draws on the Turk­ish tra­di­tion of women’s so­cial gath­er­ings called “gün” (mean­ing “day” in Turk­ish). A gün is a ladies’ gath­er­ing for the pur­poses of con­ver­sa­tion, ac­tiv­i­ties and fes­tiv­i­ties ac­com­pa­nied by the serv­ing of Turk­ish food. These meet­ings are in­for­mal hubs of so­cial net­works, where women come to­gether to share con­cerns and skills, often gen­er­at­ing a mi­cro-econ­omy that in­volves the col­lec­tion of gold or money among the mem­bers. Dur­ing ISEA2011 we are bring­ing to­gether a num­ber of Turkey-based women to start the basis of a cul­tural-ex­change ini­tia­tive.  Guests are se­lected based on their con­tri­bu­tions to con­tem­po­rary cul­ture in Turkey in a num­ber of fields rang­ing from jour­nal­ism, vi­sual arts, music, lit­er­a­ture, new media, crafts, and de­sign. This meet­ing will be doc­u­mented in a lim­ited edi­tion book to be dis­trib­uted dur­ing the fes­ti­val.  This book will also pro­vide the basis for an on­line plat­form bring­ing Turk­ish women based in the United States and Eu­rope to the con­ver­sa­tion.  With this event we hope to spring­board the tra­di­tions of Turk­ish women’s cul­tural pro­duc­tion as a basis for ex­tend­ing the spirit of the Gün among net­worked women.

  • Arzu Ozkal ques­tions dog­mas, tra­di­tions, laws, and pa­tri­ar­chal value sys­tems through videos, pub­lic in­ter­ven­tions and per­for­mances. She is an As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Graphic De­sign at San Diego State Uni­ver­sity, US.
  • Clau­dia Costa Ped­er­son  works on his­to­ries about the re­la­tion­ship of media with artis­tic and so­cial en­er­gies. She pro­duced radio and video works in col­lab­o­ra­tion with ac­tivists and women artists in the Nether­lands and Ger­many and is cur­rently con­clud­ing a doc­tor­ate at Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity (US) on the work of artists using dig­i­tal games for so­cial cri­tique.