Migrating UniVErSitY OF MiCKiEWiCZ

/En

OCtObEr 18–19, 2014 1 PM – 7 PMLECtUrES / PrESEntatiOnS / DiSCUSSiOnS

OCtObEr 25, 20147 PMartiStiC intErVEntiOnS

aDaM MiCKiEWiCZ MUSEUMSerdar Ömerpaşa Caddesitatlı badem Sokak no: 23bostan Mahallesibeyoğlu, İstanbul

“HE SHaLL gO On bEing aCtiVE EVEn in tHE WaKE OF DEatH”

– this is how adam Mickiewicz’s secretary described him. the Migrating University fulfils the prophecy, giving new momentum to the nineteenth--century romantic poet’s story. We are about to walk into his museum in istanbul, located at the exact spot where Mickiewicz died, and turn the biographical and historical exhibition into an interdisciplinary laboratory. the “yellow house” at the intersection of Serdar Ömerpaşa Caddesi and tatlı badem Sokak is temporarily converted into a home for lectures and artistic interventions, in the course of which we shall be testing how current and universal the story of the Polish bard, émigré, mystic, and radical social and political activist really was. in the subjective and eclectic language of art, we shall be supplementing and adding to the factual tale present daily at the museum.

– Max Cegielski

adam Mickiewicz Museum, istanbul, 2014Fo

t. Ju

styn

a C

hmie

lew

ska

Mickiewicz arrived in Constantinople in September 1855 – twenty years after penning his most famous poems, which all Polish children memorise to this day. None-theless, no school teaches that L’Histoire de l’avenir (The History of the Future), a pre-cursor of science fiction, was among his final works; only snatches and descriptions of the various versions of the book have been preserved. And yet these mere traces proved sufficient for tomasz Szerszeń, author of erudite collages shown at Paris Photo. He created his own variation on L’Histoire de l’avenir – and we are showing it as an intel-lectual “virus” penetrating the exhibition and summarising all its motifs. In the later years of his life, Mickiewicz became an activist rather than remaining a poet; he began dabbling in politics, and was a co-founder of the my-stical and heretic Circle of God’s Cause; he organised the military Polish Legion in Italy, and published a liberation newspaper – Trybuna Ludów (The People’s Tri-bune), his writings including hopes he harboured for the socialist movement. This seditious potential of the poet’s legacy, but also the failure of his vision, have been referred to in an the work of Janek Simon. A recipient of the Spojrzenia (Views) prize, the most important in the visual arts in Poland, Simon wanders the world himself, much as Mickiewicz did. While the nineteenth-century poet roamed Europe, Simon travels across India, Madagascar, and Nigeria, working on his “de-colonising” projects. The protagonist of our endeavour was a refugee and émigré in the most profound sense of both terms; fleeing political repressions, he had to leave his

adam Mickiewicz, photo by Michał Szweycer, Paris, 1853

home as a student; years later, he settled in Paris, where he struggled to support his family working as a lecturer and tutor. He died in Constantinople, “in one of the dirtiest and unhealthiest parts of the city, in a pit where all gutters merge, where heaps of dung soil street and pavement alike, filling the air with rotten fumes.” I am not recalling this century-old description of Tarlabaşı for the purposes of a take on the Syrians, Africans, Kurds, or Roma resident in the settlement today. My point is that Mickiewicz was simply an “Adam” – a human being, dweller of a ghetto as stigmatised in the year 1855 as it is today, as we are reminded by the neon light created by Mikołaj Długosz, a leading Polish artist dealing with found footage, and socialist-era aesthetics, architecture and design. Arriving in Istanbul with his secretary and friend Armand Lévy and as-sistant Henryk Służalski, the poet did not have the money to check into any of the luxury hotels on Pera Hill. Nor did he choose to accept any invitations from the Polish émigré elite residents in palaces on the Bosphorus. He picked a “me-agre room” in the lowland part of the European quarter, today a location in-creasingly popular with artists escaping the gentrification of the “other side” of the Tarlabaşı Boulevard. In an emulation of nineteenth-century developments, urban space transformation follows migrating artists, extending to the poet’s former neighbourhood: some buildings are being renovated, others torn down.

adam Mickiewicz’s house, istanbul, 1880

assistance to troops created under Polish command in the army of the Ottoman Empire. The Crimean War was in full flow; like many others, Mickiewicz saw the war as an opportunity for liberation: he believed that the Sultan’s army could conquer the Russians, who were by then occupying the majority of formerly Polish lands. His homeland, the Nobles Commonwealth, had not existed on any maps since the late eighteenth century. The poet arrived in the “City of Cities” by sea, driven by a profound belief that the road to independence may indeed lead across the Orient. In the autumn of 1855, when visiting a Cossack encampment in Bourgas (under the command of a Polish nobleman convert to Islam), Mickiewicz noted the Jewish origin of many soldiers. He then decided to organise a separate Jewish Legion in an endeavour as mystical as it was military. His plan was a development on his earlier concepts of spiritual liberation requiring equal rights for the Jewish minority, and – much more broadly – for representatives of varied religions, ethnic groups, and civilisations. Once the work on the Jewish Legion in Istanbul began taking actual shape, Mickiewicz suddenly died and the idea itself toppled. Today, we are resurrecting it thanks to ania Kuczyńska, an avant-garde designer, who produced her own version of a Jewish legionnaire’s uniform. Paradoxically, the my-stical vision came to life at an intersection of the world of fashion and visual arts. The poet’s friends wrote of Constantinople: “This is where a pack of Eu-ropeans want to impress good-natured Turks with superficial civilisation, and so they act the collective braggart.” Mickiewicz was no braggart; with no conde-scension, he made attempts to study the local context – he took his final Turkish

This dynamic has been analysed by Vahit tuna, who abandoned the role he is best known for – as Istanbul’s top graphic designer – in favour of the Migrating Uni-versity. Tuna’s film reflects on first-hand experience: his studio is close to the museum, while the artist himself knows Tarlabaşı inside out. Özgür Demirci’s film offers another version of the map of the district, more mental in nature; Demirci ventured into resear-ching the neighbourhood in the past, i.e. when working with car tuning freaks from the nearby Dolapdere valley. Wojtek Doroszuk assumed a slightly different approach in analysing the story of individual residents – immediate neighbours of the Mickiewicz Museum. A Polish artist living in France, Doroszuk had worked in Turkey in the past, among others on a film describing the fate and fortune of transvestites from Ankara. His video works are never a simple “social intervention” – as also proven by the work shown at the exhibition, the story of a pharmacist living close to the museum. Unlike other Romantics, Mickiewicz did not come to the Bosphorus to relish the exotic tastes of the Orient. He had little time to be a tourist, visiting harems or dervish fraternities. He was focused on his political mission: to provide

adam Mickiewicz shortly after death, photo by Stanisław Ostroróg, istanbul, november 28, 1855

a text handwritten in turkish by adam Mickiewicz

language class just one day before he died; he followed his fascination with Oriental languages, a taste he had developed at the university. The power of language and translation issues are recalled in another work shown at the exhi-bition: an audio piece by the Slavs and tatars collective. Using the language of art to research identity issues – “from the Berlin Wall to the Great Wall of China” – this world-renowned duo introduces the audience and spectators to the Polish-Turkish space of the museum. We also present their version of the “For our freedom and yours” slogan used during the November Uprising (1831) in Poland. Was Mickiewicz’s sudden death in Turkey caused by cholera, an epi-demic that was rife in the region at the time? Or, as others had it, was he pur-posely poisoned? This could have been to the benefit of Russians as well as of the conservative wing of Polish émigré society, alarmed by the liberal concepts proclaimed by the poet. Or, quite possibly, our protagonist, by then no longer young and a resident of Tarlabaşı, fell victim to a poor diet. He took his meals at local “gargots”, the cheapest of cheap restaurants – infuriating Poles who took great care to isolate themselves from local Turkish life. Chicken was Mickiewicz’s last meal, as shown in tunca Subaşı’s culinary performance piece. The motifs present in the Migrating University’s lectures and exhibition are little known, also in Poland. Mickiewicz’s companion Henryk Służalski wrote, “It goes to show that Paris has to be changed for Asia, if access to Warsaw is to be granted. Such are the teachings of modern geography.” Tracing the Polish poet’s final journey by means of art and science, Turkish audiences can both travel back in time to Con-stantinople’s multicultural past, and rethink the issues of contemporary Istanbul, the Tarlabaşı district in particular. If it is indeed the “City of Cities” which stands upon the Bosphorus, today its heart beats somewhere near the Adam Mickiewicz Museum.

Henryk Służalski by adam Mickiewicz's dead body, sketched by priest tyszko, istanbul, 1855

SLaVS anD tatarS anİa KUCZYńSKaJanEK SİMOn VaHİt tUna ÖZgür DEMİrCİWOJtEK DOrOSZUKtOMaSZ SZErSZEńMİKOłaJ DłUgOSZ tUnCa SUbaşi

artiStiCintEr–VEntiOnSOCtObEr 25 – nOVEMbEr 16, 2014

An adaptation of the famous motto from the times of the November Upri-sing (1831) attributed to Joachim Lelewel, adorning the banner which currently forms part of the collection of the Museum of the Polish Army in Warsaw. The motto was originally used in Polish and Russian to stress that the uprising was launched against the tsarist authorities and not against Russians. Its author, Joachim Lelewel, was also the founder of a Vilnius periodical which hosted Mickiewicz’s literary début, and a professor at the local universi-ty. As an academic, he focused his interests on Oriental languages, including Aramaic, and the culture of India. Many young students took up “Asian studies” under his influence. Mickiewicz himself wrote in a letter to his professor: “I have begun to avidly study Oriental languages”, yet he was prematurely expelled from the Vilnius University for political reasons. Many of his friends became cele-brated translators, experts in Turkish or Persian culture. Raised in the multicultu-ral eastern part of former Poland, in cities whose inhabitants included Christians, Jews and Muslims, they established the unique school of “Slavic Orientalism”. Unlike the “imperial”, superior British perspective, their approach to “outsiders” was full of understanding and empathy. This phenomenon is the theme of Slavs and Tatars' performative lecture I Utter Other prepared especially for the Migra-ting University of Mickiewicz. Translation of the motto “For our freedom and yours” into another lan-guage is thus aligned not only to the concept of the trans-border brotherhood of the Spring of Nations. The Arabic script of Persian language reflects the spirit of the Oriental fascinations of Lelewel and Mickiewicz. The latter, during his cruise to Constantinople and on the eve of his death, was learning Turkish, at the time based not on the Latin alphabet but on that of the Koran. Concepts of freedom thus cross not just national borders, but the boundaries of civilisations too.

Slavs and tatars PosterFOr OUr FrEEDOM anD YOUrS

The Lector is a dual-channel audio installation which presents an excerpt from the 11th-century Turkish epic Kutadgu Bilig (Wisdom of Royal Glory) in its Turkish-language version with a voice over in Polish. The poem belongs to the me-dieval didactic genre dubbed the “mirror for princes”, which became popular in Christian and Muslim countries. The fragment featured in The Lector contains in-structions on public speaking, use of language which may either bring good or bad luck, gains or losses, and explains such terms like “to loosen one’s tongue,” “to hold one’s tongue” and “to stick one’s tongue out”.

For many years, Mickiewicz himself believed in the power and the poten-tial of language, while today, his epic poems are read aloud or even recited from memory. He was also the champion of live improvisation, able to hypnotise and rouse the audience with his inspired voice, rhythm and the content of his words. Maria Janion, an eminent researcher of his life and works, stresses that the “realm of doing” came to the fore after 1848, when he established his first legion in Italy. She argues that Mickiewicz progressed from disavowing poetry as the “art of beautiful words” to the belief that with their acts poets should build every-thing “they sang in inspiration”.

Set in the context of the museum, the installation presented by Slavs and Tatars serves as an introduction to the exhibition and forms a transition zone betwe-en the hubbub of the street and the tranquil interior. It provokes a reflection on the relationship between language and action, which Mickiewicz believed had its focal point in the Orient. His perception of the East, which reminded him of his fatherland, went beyond an array of clichés and stereotypes – he embraced it with empathy and understanding. We should also keep in mind that at the time, Mickiewicz’s homeland was far behind the capital of the Ottoman Empire on the ladder of civi-lisation. The poet’s final journey had not taken him to the periphery but, in a sense, to the centre, as it revisited Adam’s youthful fascinations.

Slavs and tatars Sound installationtHE LECtOr

Slavs and tatars – artistic collective whose installations, lecture-performances, publications and multidisciplinary projects make references to syncretic ideas, belief systems and rites practised by people in the Caucasus, Central asia and Central Europe and their little-known interplay.

Courtesy of Raster Gallery, Warsaw, Poland.

Since the 19th century, literary researchers and biographers of the natio-nal poet have been engaged in an ideological dispute over his last concept: the establishment of the Jewish Legion. Undoubtedly, Mickiewicz was busy organising some form of special unit for soldiers with Jewish roots. The eminent Polish literatu-re scientist Maria Janion stresses that he wrote several years earlier: “To Israel, our elder brother, honour, fraternity (…). Equal rights in all things!” His words met with fierce protest from conservative-minded Poles, and the poet-cum-activist himself was disappointed with the attitude of the Catholic pope, as he wrote: “The Church has preserved only rites, it has completely lost the spirit of the life of Christ.” These views were the cornerstone of the concept of the Jewish Legion, initially instigated life by Sadyk Pasha – the chief commander of Ottoman Cossacks who followed Mickiewicz’s advice – by decrees on religious freedom: “To have the Muslims celebrate Fridays, the Israelites Saturdays and Christians of the Eastern and Western Catholic Church Sundays according to their cu-stoms.” Some sources claim that uniforms were designed for the new unit, but if this is true, sketches went missing. The legionnaire’s uniform, designed by Ania Kuczyńska, is a modern va-riation on the uniform theme. Through its character it alludes to the look of twen-tieth century rebels, people fighting the system, resisting being stereotyped, ma-nifesting their views through their appearance. The uniform is comprised of boots, trousers, a t-shirt and a double-sided jacket with gold embroidery. Hamsa – also known as the hand of Fatima or the hand of Miriam – is a symbol of providence present in both Jewish and Muslim culture, and as a decorative ornament alludes to both these faiths. The uniform is ready to be “issued” to a non-existent soldier, packed in a box and wrapped in tissue paper. The exhibition is complemented by a multiplied image, reminiscent of old war portraits, engravings and photographs from the end of the nineteenth century.

ania Kuczyńska Uniform, photographs, sets a LEgiOnarY’S UniFOrM

ania Kuczyńska – one of the most distinguished, best selling fashion designers in Poland. Wallpaper magazine called her the “Pole Star” and described her as “the brightest beacon in the Polish design firmament”. Over past 10 years she has continued to refine her distinguished aesthetic, often described as “ornate minimalism”. named “the Eastern promise” by style.com  and british Vogue her style is distinctively Polish but also very much the complete, modern European.

Outfit design / exhibition concept: Ania KuczyńskaPhotos: Bartek Wieczorek

After the fire in Pera in 1870, the wooden house in which Mickiewicz lived at the time of his death was rebuilt in brick – probably in a slightly different place. When his museum was opened there in 1955, a symbolic crypt was arranged in its basement. Historians are convinced that from 26 November until 30 December 1855 the body of the poet, who had died unexpectedly, was not kept in the base-ment (it is possible that it did not exist yet) but outside the house. Janek Simon’s work addresses the problem of authenticity and originality of such symbolic me-morial sites and burial places of national icons. His intervention transforms the basement into a universal “cemetery of art” and of artists themselves. The bust of the young visual artist merged with the torso of the famous Ro-mantic poet to form a new whole is by no means an attempt to bask in the reflected glory of the national bard. On the contrary, it is a reference to the miserable life, poverty and daily problems experienced by generations of artists. For many years, Janek Simon has been dealing with unsuccessful projects and objects, and now he focuses on the poet’s sudden death. His work may be interpreted as a reminder that although Mickiewicz is revered as a great Romantic poet in Poland, he actu-ally never managed to realise his dreams and, in a sense, experienced his life as a failure. He did not live to see the independent Poland, his democratic newspaper La Tribune des Peuples (The People’s Tribune) was closed by the censors in Paris, and he did not succeed in establishing the Jewish Legion in the Ottoman Empire. Working on his object, Janek Simon employed the latest technologies – 3D scanning and printing – which he attributes with a massive, revolutionary potential to set man free from commodities made by corporations. He sees the Internet, the bitcoin and new technologies as an area of freedom, as anarchistic “Temporary Autonomous Zones”. Two joined busts echo the leftist and subversive dimension of Mickiewicz’s acti-vities and ideas, which may now be developed using entirely new means.

Janek Simon ObjectaDaM JanEK MiCKiEWiCZ SiMOn

Janek Simon – studied sociology and psychology. in 2007, he was the winner of the Spojrzenia (Views) Deutsche bank Prize for the best artist under 35 years of age. He addresses such topics as the exotic and perception of other cultures by Poland and Europe. Co-founder of the independent goldex Poldex Cooperative. His works have been displayed at Manifesta 7, the Warsaw-based gallery raster, bunkier Sztuki in Kraków, as well as in bristol, Mumbai and Havana.

“The Orient had always tempted Mickiewicz,” writes the Polish scholar Jan Reychman. He also reminds us that it was no superficial, romantic fad, but a mani-festation of profound “messianic” confidence in the “turnaround” for Poles and the whole of humankind that would come from the East. This conviction was fuelled by knowledge drawn from Orientalist friends from Vilnius – Mickiewicz himself trans-lated Hafiz and other Persian poets into Polish; regrettably, he never came across Omar Khayyam’s works. The title of the work displayed at the exhibition does not merely represent the name of the eminent Persian poet, mystic, philosopher and mathematician from the turn of the 12th century who took an interest in geometry, discovered methods for solving some cubic equations and described the figure known today as Pascal’s triangle. “Omar Khayyam” is also the name of a street, one of the main thoroughfa-res in Tarlabaşı, where the studio of the author, Vahit Tuna, is located. His video puts together two seemingly unlikely realities: the historical and mystical realm and the contemporary, social one. The street is now witnessing intensive gentrification – it’s popular among artists, chased away from neighbourhoods in upper Pera by soaring rents, and foreigners, mainly students. Mickiewicz settled in this area 150 years ago for the same reasons – he was possibly the first artist in the neighbourhood, the “pre-cursor” of the gentrifiers of Tarlabaşı. Omar Khayyam Street also forms the boundary of the radical transforma-tions of this part of Istanbul manifested by demolitions along Tarlabaşı Boulevard or conversion of residential houses into hotels or guesthouses in the upper parts of the district located in close proximity to Taksim Square. Recorded by the artist, himself also an actor in these processes, interviews with other people witnessing changes illustrate the economic transformations in the district and reflect how the neighbourhood in which the Mickiewicz Museum is located has evolved from a stig-matised ghetto into the focal point of urban and political conflicts. Vahit Tuna takes a subtle approach to this subject – instead of using strong words and images, he chooses to revisit Persian quatrains – the rubaiyats – and the figure of Khayyam himself, a concrete mathematician and at the same time ambiguous mystic.

Vahit tuna VideoOMar KHaYYaM

Vahit tuna – artist and graphic designer. His credits include a number of solo exhibitions, staged i.e. at Depo gallery in istanbul, and the “Masa” (the table) project launched in 2007 – a low-budget exhibition of artistic works on a table which the audience may see in his studio or selected urban spaces (istanbul, berlin).

“Everything that happened is bizarre, and no one knows how to explain it” – such was the verdict that one could read about Mickiewicz’s sudden death. More than a hundred years on, it is difficult to distinguish facts from myths and distortions from the truth in all accounts; the poet’s stay in Istanbul has evolved into a work of art subject to various interpretations – and the same applies to Özgür Demirci’s video. In Constantinople, “Mickiewicz’s modest if not downright tough living cir-cumstances were painfully visible,” writes literary scholar Ksenia Kostenicz in The Chronicles of the Poet’s Life and Work. Ludwika Śniadecka, the wife of Michał Czaj-kowski – Sadyk Pasha – wrote: “he lives in a hovel in Galata, while I try to find him an apartment here”, i.e. in Beşiktaş, but the national poet had firmly declined all invitations from his wealthy compatriots. He consciously chose to “sleep on a palliasse, tucked under some Turkish carpet or a Turkish throw”, despite the fact that autumn in 1855 was particularly wet and cold. It is not surprising that many researchers argue that he travelled to the Orient with the intention of dying there. Did Mickiewicz transform his stay in the Ottoman Empire into a spectacle charting the death of a romantic poet? Even if it wasn’t so in his day, today every gesture and private narrative becomes a spectacle. Extracts of Guy Debord’s book The Society of the Spectacle, a critique of contemporary art as a tool of control and gentrification featured in Özgür Demirci’s video, may thus become a useful tool to research the past and the current condition of the quarter in which the Polish poet died. The video takes Tarlabaşı inside the Mickiewicz Museum, where it gains its intellectual and symbolic foothold and marks an attempt at charting the “psychogeography” of the neighbourhood.

Özgür Demirci VideoSPLit SCrEEn

Özgür Demirci – istanbul-based artist embracing various media, ranging from drawings and photography to video and performance. His works address such issues as urbanisation, social movements and power, and he often makes references to his own biography. Demirci has participated in a number of artist-in-residence programmes and had his works exhibited in istanbul (Pasaj, Depo, galeri Mana), Dresden (Ostrale ‘14) and tokyo (arcus Project).

In one of his letters, Mickiewicz describes Constantinople, recalling: “One needs to have truly democratic and powerful senses to bear the first impressions of an Oriental city. But I have quickly grown used to it.” He later explains that the capital of the Ottoman Empire reminds him of some districts of his “Lithuanian hometown”. His travel companions too, who also embarked not on a “romantic journey”, but on a political mission, notice the multicultural edge of the city. Wojtek Doroszuk’s video may be interpreted as an epitaph for this Muslim openness. The main character is Erol, a pharmacist well into his eighties. We cannot be sure if he is a Turkish Muslim or an Armenian or a Kurd. He’s certainly one of the oldest residents of the area neighbouring the museum, and the only one who recalls the Greek and the Armenian community. The video evokes hüzün – the sorrow after the fall of Constantinople known from Orhan Pamuk’s novels. Erol is also a poet, and his narrative, which mentions an ill-fated love, is overwhelmed by melancholy and sorrow. Analysing Wojtek Doroszuk’s work from this perspective, we will see that the artist is also seeking a local context for the “romantic idiom” which underpins Polish culture. Is lack of romantic fulfilment a consequence of a consciously adopted attitude or an after-effect of cultural conditioning, the result of a free choice or a social imperative? Doroszuk’s video takes the history of the district represented by a specific character and the story of his life into the Mickiewicz Museum.

Wojtek Doroszuk VideotHE PHarMaCiSt

Wojtek Doroszuk – artist based in Kraków and rouen. His works have been exhibited in Warsaw (Zachęta, Museum of Modern art), new York (Location One), San Francisco (Marina abramović institute), Oslo (Stenersen Museum) and Paris (Joseph tang gallery). in 2007 and 2008 he completed the video projects Gençlik Parkı (Youth Park) and Birkaç Yer (Some Places), making references to ankara’s urban space.

This series was inspired by Mickiewicz’s never published monumental work L’Histoire de l’avenir (The History of the Future), whose consecutive versions were de-stroyed by the author. The story was a cross between the philosophical “pre-science fiction” and a geopolitical diagnosis. Letters of the poet’s friends indicate that he was dithering over a utopian and anti-utopian vision of the future. He was certainly ahe-ad of the technological ideas known from the later novels of Verne or Wells.

Putting together various apparently unlikely images – visualisations of po-tential “Mickiewiczesque” visions of the future and fitting commentaries – Tomasz Szerszeń introduces the vision of history understood as a mishmash of various or-ders, a place where different, apparently mutually exclusive stories converge. The vision of History (with a capital H) confronts private, potentially “poor” histories (with a small h), in keeping with Mickiewicz’s intentions.

The Polish poet set the scene for his L’Histoire de l’avenir around the year 2000. For us, the things he envisioned as products of the future and elements of a utopia are contemporary, as they exist here and now. Tomasz Szerszeń’s work not only marks an attempt to develop and visualise never completed potential storylines from the life and work of Mickiewicz, but also strives to update the problems highligh-ted by the poet and answer the question of what has remained of his utopian visions and geopolitical prophecies. Is failure the unmistakable antonym of every utopia? Does the vision of the future lose its subversive edge, as it becomes reality? Utopia and dreams are contrasted with the vision of the demise – witnessed by Mickiewicz in Istanbul in 1855 and seen by the contemporary visual artist in Tarlabaşı in 2014. (Based on the artist’s text).

tomasz Szerszeń Photographs, collageHiStOriES OF tHE FUtUrE

tomasz Szerszeń – photographer and cultural anthropologist. Editor of Konteksty quarterly. His art projects have been exhibited by the archaeology of Photography Foundation and asymetria gallery in Warsaw, galeria Wymiany in łódź, galerie anne de Villepoix in Paris and at Paris Photo 2012 and 2013. His book Podróżnicy bez mapy i paszportu. Michel Leiris i „Documents” will be published shortly.

In the wake of the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, the People’s Repu-blic of Poland strove to come up with the modern formula for “socialism with a hu-man face”. Its quintessential elements were investments in modernist architecture and urban space. From the late 1950s, big city streets were bright with neon lighting depicting names of shops, cinemas and café bars. This era also saw the advent of neon advertising, which failed to fulfil its proper function, as the free market did not exist. Designers of illuminated signage for public space were free from economic pressure, which enabled them to establish the Polish art school of neon design. After the collapse of the communist system in 1989, the plugs were pulled and many neon signs began to break down and deteriorate – perceived as symbols of the “evil” past, they were neglected by everyone. Recently, the design from the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s has been making a comeback and is in vogue again. Mikołaj Długosz’s neon display recreates the Polish socialist reality in Istan-bul, while the use of the modernist typography symbolises prospects for eternal “resurrection” of history, including Mickiewicz’s legacy. Today, his ideals are cove-red by decades of dust, appropriated by patriotic and conservative narratives. The neon sign proves that just as we are able to reinterpret and revisit the experiences of the Socialist era, the 19th-century poet should be brought back to the light again. Depictions of two pistols remind us that after the poet’s death in November 1855 his friends were guarding his body, clutching weapons for almost a month because the several coffins used (meant to prevent the spread of cholera, the alleged cause of death) did not fit inside the house and eventually the body had to be kept in the stre-et. Służalski and Lévy had to protect his remains from some Polish émigrés who ad-vocated the poet’s burial in Constantinople. The neon guns also refers to the “black legend” of Tarlabaşı, a quarter stigmatised for years as a dangerous neighbourhood which is actually inhabited by people like Mickiewicz – poor émigrés.

Mikołaj Długosz Neon sign(contributor: Janek bersz)tarLabaşi – aDaM

Mikołaj Długosz – visual artist who works mainly with archives and found footage. His credits include the books Pogoda ładna (2006), Real foto (2008), and 1994 (2011), as well as exhibitions at Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Centre for Contemporary art and asymetria gallery in Warsaw, and Kronika gallery in bytom.

The title of this act was inspired by a letter by the Polish poet written in Constantinople, which serves as the starting point for exploration of intercultural re-lations through food. Other émigrés in the city were “scandalised” or outraged that Mickiewicz lived “the Turkish way”. His diet soon became a political issue. In the title of his article of 1932, the Polish writer Boy-Żeleński earnestly inquires if the poet had been poisoned. He noted that although Mickiewicz had been lionised, at the end of his life “his political activities were discussed in (…) hushed voice, with regret and indignation”. Revered as the icon of Polishness, he was hated by priests, “unpopular with monarchists as a ‘red’ and with freethinkers as a religious aficionado”. The fraught atmosphere surrounding the poet’s stay and work in Constan-tinople is also reflected by an account given by a physician summoned to examine Mickiewicz: “He’s a distinguished figure; (…) they will say I’ve killed him.” Only with a loaded gun put to his head did the physician agree to visit the patient, but when he reached the apartment of the still breathing poet, he again began to complain: “They will say I’ve killed him!” If this is true, how the poison was administered remains a criminal myste-ry. What we know for sure is the fact that the poet’s last meal was chicken served with wine. But how was it prepared? The traditional Ottoman way or à la grecque or maybe à la polonaise? If the poet were a contemporary immigrant living in to-day’s Tarlabaşı, he would probably have the choice of chicken cooked the African, Kurdish, Syrian or Romani way. May gastronomy serve as the key to understan-ding the history and cultural transformations? The performance, which involves live cooking for the audience, will address all these questions. Tunca Subaşı will prepare the once popular and now forgotten Ottoman dish ballı Mahmudiye and chicken roulade stuffed with liver, whose recipe he mastered during cooking work-shops in Poland. Both dishes feature chicken and honey.

tunca Subaşı A culinary performance“MY traVEL COMPaniOn iS CUtting tHE CHiCKEn nECK WitH a StiLEttO, tHEn WE WiLL aDD PiLaF...”

tunca Subaşı – visual artist based in istanbul. a graduate of Mimar Sinan Fine arts University. His works have been displayed during solo and collective exhibitions in Pi artworks, Kuad, Sanatorium galleries, baksi Museum and Proje 4L Elgiz. in 2009, he co-founded Sanatorium art Centre.

Slavs and tatars i UttEr OtHEr

What does it mean for one east to look at another one? Can the romanticized romanticize? From Poles in the service of the Tsar to Persian Presbyterians, I Utter Other looks at the curious case of Slavic Orientalism in the Russian Empire and early USSR. Slavic Orientalism offers a crucial counterpoint if not antecedent to the received wisdom of Saidian Orientalism. Despite the radical transition from Tsarism to Bolshevism, the study of the East in the East complicates notions of identity politics and knowledge in the service of power, offering a coherent post-colonial critique some 60 years avant la lettre. 

Slavs and tatarstHE trannY tEaSE

Through the lens of phonetic, semantic, and theological slippage, The Tranny Tease explores the potential for transliteration – the conversion of scripts – as a strategy equally of resistance and research into notions such as iden-tity politics, colonialism, and faith. The newest lecture-performance in the artists’ current cycle of work, The Tranny Tease focuses on the Turkic languages of the former Soviet Union, as well as the eastern and western frontiers of the Turkic sphere, namely Anatolia and Xinjiang/Uighu-ristan. Lenin believed that the revolution of the east begins with the Latinization of the alphabets of all Muslims of the USSR. The march of alphabets has always accompanied that of empires – Arabic with the rise of Islam, Latin with that of Roman Caholicism, and Cyrillic with the Orthodox Church and subsequently communism. The Tranny Tease attempts not to emancipate peoples or nations but rather the sounds rolling off our tongues.

Slavs and tatars – artistic collective whose installations, lecture-performances, publications and multidisciplinary projects make references to syncretic ideas, belief systems and rites practised by people in the Caucasus, Central asia and Central Europe and their little-known interplay.

LECtUrEStraiLEr: Slavs and tatarsOCtObEr 10, 2014 SALT BEyOğLU18:30 i UttEr OtHEr (ENG)

OCtObEr 11, 2014 SALT ULUS17:00 tHE trannY tEaSE (ENG)

OCtObEr 18, 2014 ADAM MICKIEWICZ MUSEUM 1:30 PM Özlem ünsal “tOgEtHEr WE StanD, DiViDED WE FaLL”: graSSrOOtS MObiLiZatiOn anD Urban tranSFOrMatiOn in tarLabaşi (TR)

3:00 PM Paulina Dominik On tHE POLiSH tiMES OF PEra. POLiSH POLitiCaL ÉMigrÉS in 19tH-CEntUrY iStanbUL (TR)

4:30 PM bogna Świątkowska art PrOJECtS in “DiFFiCULt” Urban SPaCES aS iLLUStratED bY tHE CaSE OF WarSaW (ENG)

OCtObEr 19, 2014 ADAM MICKIEWICZ MUSEUM 1:30 PM agnieszka ayşen Kaim aDaM MiCKiEWiCZ Or tHE StOrY OF a tUrKiCiSED barD (TR)

3:30 PM ali Öz tarLabaşi: a DEFiLED iStanbUL DiStriCt – slide show (TR)

bogna Świątkowskaart PrOJECtS in “DiFFiCULt” Urban SPaCES aS iLLUStratED bY tHE CaSE OF WarSaW

The rollout of art projects in urban space often transforms into “good violence”. The artists have noble intentions, but the consequences of their efforts are unpredictable and often turn out to be an act of violence against the residents of districts, houses or streets into which the art encroaches. The situ-ations they stage go beyond the area of visual art; they don’t make any refe-rences to it and occur in a completely different narrative. A vivid example from Poland is Julita Wójcik’s Rainbow – an arch made from plastic flowers standing next to a church in a frequented square in Warsaw – regarded as a symbol of the gay and lesbian community. Previously, an identical rainbow decorated the walls of a monastery and no one perceived it as a symbol of moral liberalism. The current installation has been set on fire several times and is regularly the site of protests from conservatives. Such reactions are comple-tely detached from the original symbolism of this artwork; reality works its own way. Another example is provided by Joanna Rajkowska’s Oxygenator, or her Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue, designed to make a reference to the history of Jews in Po-land and accepted by the residents of Warsaw simply as a local attraction. On the other hand, Grzegorz Drozd painted Malewicz’s Black Square on the rooftops of to-wer blocks in a council housing estate whose residents are people evicted from their houses. His project sparked vehement protest among local residents, who concluded that they had been stigmatised by the artist. They asked openly: who gives artists the privilege to conduct such campaigns? In another example, Paweł Althamer, who-se activities are focused on the suburban district of Bródno where he himself lives, has been cooperating with neighbours from the beginning of his project and thus enjoys their support. Each of these situations has inspired a wide social debate in Poland which has gone beyond art, because the artists are bringing out emotions on a whole new level. “Good violence” only sounds like an apparent contradiction.

bogna Świątkowska – founder of the “bęc Zmiana” Foundation, with which she has carried out a number of interdisciplinary projects that combined art, architecture, design and reflection on the mechanisms of culture. She is also the founder of Notes na 6 tygodni magazine, she has edited numerous books and curated various art exhibitions.

Paulina Dominik On tHE POLiSH tiMES OF PEra. POLiSH POLitiCaL ÉMigrÉS in tHE ninEtEEntH CEntUrY iStanbUL

In the aftermath of the final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Common-wealth (1795) by Russia, Prussia and Austria, the Ottoman Empire became one of the most important destinations for Polish political émigrés. Poles fled to Istan-bul hoping for Ottoman support in their efforts to regain independence. The Po-lish presence in the Ottoman Empire, however, was not limited to the activities aimed at the restoration of an independent Poland; rather, Polish émigrés also played an active role in the enterprise of modernization of the Ottoman state. For decades hundreds of Polish émigrés pursued various occupations in the Ottoman army, administration, road and telegraph construction, health services as well as industry and agriculture. This presentation rediscovers Polish life in the nineteenth and early twen-tieth century Istanbul. Memoirs and correspondences of the Polish émigrés reveal that the Ottoman capital was full of Polish cafés, clubs, canteens and caravan-serais and Polish language was frequently heard in the cosmopolitan Pera. This presentation seeks to answer several questions. What imprints did the Ottoman experience leave on Poles and what did Poles leave behind on Istanbul’s landsca-pe? This presentation analyzes the relations among the members of the Polish community, their perception of their Ottoman hosts and their mutual contacts. It also focuses on their interactions with other émigré communities of Istanbul. The lecture is an alternative reading of the Late Ottoman Istanbul’s topography.

Paulina Dominik – historian focusing of the Polish migration to the Ottoman Empire; graduated from Oxford University.

witnessing both the neighborhood’s gradual demolition and also the visual representations of what is envisaged for Tarlabaşı’s future by local authorities on advertorial curtains concealing the construction site. What is less visible is the impact of grassroots mobilization among local residents in the effort to manage the many consequences of a regeneration scheme at such immense scale. The aim of this talk is to shed light on the emergence, role, weaknesses and strengths of a neighbourhood association that primarily aimed to protect the urban rights of Tarlabaşı’s residents against the forces of neoliberal urban transformation.

Özlem ünsal – an istanbul based urban researcher working on neoliberal urban policies, grassroots resistance movements and rights to the city. She completed her thesis on a comparative analysis of neighbourhood movements in two inner-city poverty and conservation zones of istanbul, undergoing state-led urban transformation at the City University, London. Her text have been published in Betonart, Yeni Mimar, Express and Istanbul.

agnieszka ayşen KaimaDaM MiCKiEWiCZ Or tHE StOrY OF a tUrKiCiSED barD

What were the ten essential rules listed by Aleksander Chodźko in his Drogman, a once popular primer for Europeans travelling to the Orient? Did Adam Mickiewicz follow these rules? This lecture takes a closer look at the rhy-thm and the melody of Mickiewicz’s poetry to identify universal epic features. Are there any links between Mickiewicz and the Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet? I will exa-mine their similar vicissitudes to determine if their writing shares any common ele-ments. Shortly before his death, as if sensing its imminence, Mickiewicz wrote a mi-niature dramatic narrative about a soldier who contracts cholera and dies. Entitled Rozmowy chorych, the story was written in French in a style reminiscent of dialogues from Karagöz, the Turkish shadow theatre. The poet foretells his own fate as the plot unfolds, using harsh or even vulgarised language. Was this new style inspired by the Turkish satire and comedy? Polish writers and intellectuals – Mickiewicz’s contempora-ries – defined the language of his poetry as Oriental, for it was replete with words of Turkish origin. After the poet’s unexpected death, a heated dispute ensued over where and in which country his body should be interred, and even what headgear he should wear during the funeral. What would have happened had Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish bard, been buried wearing a kolpak on his head? How would it have impacted Polish--Turkish relations? And had he been buried in Adampol, a Polish village near Istanbul?

agnieszka ayşen Kaim – turkish studies expert, translator, storyteller and actress at the “Studnia O” theatre group.

ali ÖztarLabaşi – a DEFiLED iStanbUL DiStriCt Slide show

In the heart of Istanbul there is a district that has been undergoing constant devastation during the last couple of years – historical houses are demolished, the steep streets distinctive of this part of the city are vanishing one by one and people living here for decades are thrown onto the stre-et. Just like other neighbourhoods – Sulukule or Fikirtepe – Tarlabaşı is falling victim to hectic, top-down gentrification, and Ali Öz is a vigilant observer and an attentive chro-nicler of these transformations. He meticulously documents the gradual decline of this neighbourhood, which despite its rather unprivileged status has always been bustling with life and has recently become the arena of a somewhat brutal “revitalisation” pro-ject that is still far from complete. For three years, the photographer has been tracking the everyday life of the area’s residents: the Azeri, the Pakistanis, the Africans and Turks who arrived here from the eastern part of the country after the earthquake, as well as transvestites, drug dealers and simit vendors; he has peeked into teahouses and night bars and visited wedding and funeral receptions to record the profound changes af-fecting the vicinity of the Mickiewicz Museum in more than 30,000 photographs. The slide show he will present during the Migrating University session is just a fraction of his documentation for the album Tarlabaşı: Ayıp şehir published in 2013.

ali Öz – press photographer, author of the much acclaimed album Tarlabaşı: Ayıp şehir / A Defiled Istanbul District (2013) and numerous exhibitions presenting the life conditions of the people living in the neighbourhood. He worked for leading turkish newspapers, i.e.: Nokta, Güneş, Milliyet, Cumhuriyet, Aktüel, Tempo and NTV Mag.

Özlem ünsal“tOgEtHEr WE StanD, DiViDED WE FaLL”: graSSrOOtS MObiLiZatiOn anD Urban tranSFOrMatiOn in tarLabaşi

Tarlabaşı has been an integral element of Istanbul’s “big urban transformation” since 2006, when an area of 20.000 square meters was declared as a renewal site by Beyoğlu Municipality. For the past few years, passer bys on Tarlabaşı Boulevard have been

WWW.tUrKiYE.CULtUrE.PL/EnThe project is organized as part of the 2014 cultural programme celebrating 600 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Poland.

The goal of Culture.pl, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute’s flagship brand, is to promote Poland and Polish culture abroad. Culture.pl presents high-quality initiatives and events in the fields of art, music, design, and more. The Culture.pl website provides daily fresh information on the most exciting Polish cultural events worldwide, it is also the biggest and most comprehensive source of knowledge about Polish culture.

Migrating UniVErSitY OF MiCKiEWiCZartiStiC intErVEntiOnS / LECtUrES / PrESEntatiOnS

CuratorMax Cegielski

Curator's assistantJustyna Chmielewska

Production CoordinatorBarbara Marcoń

Production Coordinator in turkeyAgata Fortuna

turkish translationAgnieszka Ayşen KaimOsman Fırat BaşMartyna Lazar

English translationGemra Agency

Special thanks are owed to:in Poland – Jarosław Klejnocki, Piotr Prasuła and staff (Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw), Maciej Stefański and Robert Pludra, Bogna Świątkowska and Piotr Drewko (Bęc Zmiana Foundation), Monika Szewczyk (Arsenał Gallery in Białystok), Janek Bersz (Full Metal Jacket), Paulina Dominik, Bartek Wieczorek, Raster Gallery, Anna Zakrzewska and Martyna Lazar.in istanbul – Murat Bozcu and Seraçettin Şahin representing the Board of Museums of Turkish and Islamic Arts and the staff of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland, Vice-Consul Łukasz Paprotny, Aysegül Sönmez (Sanatatak), Ali Öz and his Family, Marco Papalya, İlker Bayraktar, Mr. Tahir, galleries: Depo, SALT (especially yeliz Selvi and November Paynter) and Pasaj (especially Zeynep Okyay), the crew of Çınaraltı Kebap Salonu, Omaru Sesay and all the residents of Tarlabaşı.

aDaM MİCKİEWİCZ MüZESİ / aDaM MiCKiEWiCZ MUSEUMSerdar Ömerpaşa Caddesitatlı badem Sokak no: 23bostan Mahallesibeyoğlu, İstanbul

MigratingUniVErSitYOF MiCKiEWiCZ

Serdar Ömerpaşa Cd

irmak C

dKılb

urnu

Sk

Kurtuluş Deresi Cd

tarlabaşı blv

tarlabaşı blv

tarlabaşı blv

Karakurum Sk

Sakız ağacı Cd

gölbaşı Sk

turan Cd

Feridiye Cd taksim Dolapdere C

d

Feridiye Cd

Keresteci recep Sk

Çorbacı Sk C

evza Sk

Zambak Sk

Kalyoncu Kulluğu Cd

Öm

er Hayyam

Cd

Kurdela Sk

balo Sk

Sadri alışık Sk

aDaM

taksim

Opening hours:9:00 AM – 4:30 PM (except Mondays)