VOID: A View from Acropolis

The transferal of archaeological remains from the site of Bergama to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the more recent introduction of gold mines that encroach upon the ancient acropolis’ surrounding landscape, are considered vis-à-vis by xurban_collective, physically as sites of excavation, destruction and renewal and in turn ideologically as sites of local and international controversy.

Over the past year, xurban-collective has researched, observed and investigated the framework of dialogues between the two neighbouring sites of Bergama and the area’s gold mines. In their inquiry the idea of ‘a dig’ has been applied literally and conceptually to extract and collect evidence of spaces between the archaeological formation and the contextual framework that the site rests on. These voids, as xurban_collective describe them, clarify past and ongoing actions, catastrophes and forms of recursive treatment that the structures have experienced.

Within this discourse, Istanbul sits as a location between sites, a place where nodes of power facilitate and actualise the exploitation of Bergama and of the mining area known as Ovacik. VOID: A View from Acropolis takes place in Istanbul, at Platform Garanti, as an exhibition formed by yet another system of transferal. Earth taken from the area of Bergama and transported to Istanbul rests in a mound in the window of Platform Garanti as a symbol of digging, transferal and void.

Pressetext

VOID: A View from Acropolis
xurban_collective (xurban.net)