Over the period during which Istanbul opened the 13th edition of the Biennale, Turkey has found some space also for new international platforms. A group of curators, artists, managers and mediators gathered in Sinop, on the Black Sea banks, on the occasion of Collecting the Future, a project directed by T. Melih Görgün and Mahir Namur (European Cultural Association).
Five days of debates and planning laboratories have enthused a Public Academy, aiming to outline the future of the city and the natural park which surrounds it. Among the participants of Collecting the Future, are Michiel van Iersel (curator and cultural manager, Non-Fiction.nl), Eugen Pănescu (architect and urbanist), Ruggero Lala (Felix Meritis Foundation), Rarita Zbranka (AltArt Foundation), Işın Önol (independent curator), Johanna Reiner and Johannes Hoffman (Collabor.at) Amie Dicke, Mircea Nicolae, Johan Mürteza Fidan, Istvan Szakats (artists), Francesco Ragazzi & Francesco Urbano (Associazione E).
The results of the works have been displayed in a collective exhibition open from the 17th of September until the 17th of November, in the converted wings of the ex-prison in Sinop. In the occasion of Collecting the Future, Associazione E presented, as a gift to the city, A little out of my sunshine, a project that blends artistic and curatorial practice.
Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano presented to Sinop a large print from artist Sabina Grasso’s series Midnight Candy (Genova 1975). Before being placed in its final position, the picture was taken in a procession through some symbolic parts of the city. The landscapes reached during the walk have been temporally occupied by a big and shiny wrapped gift carried on the shoulders of a group of teenagers. Everything took place in a day with the aim of investigating the ambiguous political metaphor of “carrying new light”: this is related to the lantern of Diogene, which originated in Sinop, and also to the Turkish Government which will build a nuclear power station near the city. An oscillation between utopia and protest characterised the procession.
A video and 16 aluminium clichés were disseminated throughout the ex-prison of Sinop as a document of the action and as a further stage of the project.