Messenger Poems

Invisible labour and motherhood

For Radyo Bienal, Oda Projesi invites other women to reflect on invisible labour, motherhood and the radio. This is a sequel to 'Radio Within a Radio', which was a series of contributions by Oda Projesi to the Turkish edition of Radyo Bienal, broadcasted throughout 2021 on Açık Radyo. Oda Projesi is also invited to the 17th Istanbul Biennial with their 'Anne(x)' newspaper on motherhood. Güneş Savaş invites four female artists Myriam Varela, María Gimeno, Karen Raicher and Aylin Önel who are not living in their birth country. They answered the same questions from within their own situatednesses and perspectives: What does it mean to feel like you belong somewhere? Through what kinds of labour action does the house become a space of belonging? Özge Açıkkol invites Elin Strand Ruin and Biray Kolluoğu. The artist/architect Elin Strand Ruin responds to a set of questions by Oda Projesi: Is it possible to make a revolution in the kitchen and if so, what kind of revolution would it be? Elin refers to her work-in-progress 'Praxagora Kitchen' that took different forms in public space in two neighbourhoods in Stockholm. Biray Kolluoğlu is a professor of Sociolgy in Boğaziçi University. She reflects on the 'invisible labour of the egg' and elaborates on the power of naturalizing and denaturalizing. Seçil Yersel invites Kija Benford, the founder of Vrouwenmantel Art Research Group that is a Dutch-based art initiative specialising on the research of the maternal arts. Kija Benford directs three questions by Oda Projesi to mother and artist Eefje Wijnings, Danni van Amstel and Chloë Marsden: Is there a connection between invisible domestic labour and the invisibility of the radio? How can invisible labour have visibility within the invisible radio field? Does gossip make the invisible, visible? Through what kinds of labour action does the house become a space of belonging?

Whilst Listening to the Silence Upclose

In this episode, we lend our ears to one of the conferences of the 'Silent University', an initiative of Ahmet Öğüt, who also participates in the 17th Istanbul Biennial. The university is conceived as a learning platform that aims to empower undocumented migrants by employing them as educators.

Messenger Poems

The Poetry Channel of the 17th Istanbul Biennial is a project that calls for the poet’s mind and words to help us find other ways of thinking, relocating our senses that have been attenuated, of comprehending again, and of coming together in these unprecedented times. It brings together 15 contemporary leading and emerging poets who write in Turkish to experiment and respond to the current course of world events, and to the corporate and government created digital media paradigm by inviting them to write monthly poems throughout 2021. In this episode of Radyo Bienal, the poets reflect on the experience and read their selected poems.

A Matter of Societal Effort

In this episode, a journalist and writer who deals with ecology, food safety, politics, culture, labour and social movements, Seçil Türkkan is in conversation with Aydın Erdem, an analyst at the public research company of Konda. They talk about the themes of the 17th Istanbul Biennial and Konda’s most recent research outcomes. Oda Projesi contributes to the episode with sounds that revolve around the question of 'What is a vacation for the subjects of invisible labour?', excerpts from the play 'The Adventures of Venusian Women' by Sevgi Soysal and the archive of 101.7 FM.

Reaction Dumpling

This episode of Radyo Bienal starts with a conversation between Neslihan Koyuncu from the 23.5 Hrant Dink Memory Space and the Hrant Dink Foundation’s dear friends Fethiye Çetin and Levon Bağış. We listen to the story of how they managed to organise the Kayseri Conference that was cancelled by the governor, by turning it into a Dumpling Festival, using censorhip as a creative tool. Later, we listen to some songs from the Dumpling Festival.