Who owns the city?

At each location, there was a core team of four students, a local assistant (accompanying person) and the lecturer. This core team documented the artist's engagement with the respective location in German. For five days at the end of October, the core team from Coimbra visited the Istanbul team to share their experiences and follow the progress of the project in Turkey. The overarching theme for all cities, adapted to each location, was Who Owns the City? 

I led the Istanbul project as an invited artist, integrating the students as essential collaborators in exploring the project theme. We created and maintained sketchbooks over the course of the month of October, drawing from the city of Istanbul as inspiration to explore various sides of urban control and ownership. Our books served as exploratory tools, places to take notes unrestrainedly, record first impressions and experiment with observational artmaking. Participants were encouraged to challenge themselves, but there were no restrictions on type of media.

A series of workshops conducted twice a week introduced discussion topics related to the project’s main theme, paired with demonstrations of creative techniques that participants were encouraged to practice during outdoor drawing sessions. The second meeting of each week was held at a predetermined location related to the week’s discussion. One workshop was held during the Coimbra team’s visit to Istanbul, allowing the Portuguese students to participate as well.

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