“Büyükdere is a very ambiguous and recently shaped urban fragment of the city. It is [very] hard to understand what’s exactly happening there since there is no real planning process like we know... In relation to this, I looked at process patterns to understand these intricate moments… I was trying to trace what was [happening] underneath this current fragmented situation by tracing today’s notions to the past. There are various layers that have caused different situations which range from topography to social values or political maneuvers—and which cause a lot of things to transform. As you are following these tracks you don’t even need to mention the actors, like architects, politicians, urban planners and so on. You can shift your perspective and look at what lies behind them, focus on the static data like topography, infrastructure and other things shaping this dynamic city. Bringing the same factors together, the city becomes the actor itself.”
—Alper Derinboğaz
Excerpt from Places of Memory / Hafıza Mekanları (Istanbul: İKSV, 2014): 18

Modalities of the Spontaneous, 2014
5 reliefs, High Density Foam, CNC milling
Each 250 x 250 x 18 cm
3:15 min. video (animation by Candas Şişman)

Alper Derinboğaz’s reliefs produce three different types of cartographies in correlation. They propose specific readings of the urban history, today’s spontaneous fragments and they also speculate on future scenarios.

Fabrication Consultancy: Salih Küçüktuna

Digital Mappings: Ahmet Ünveren, Zoe Georgiou, Metehan Cem Arabacı