Step by Step
One Threads Far
“What haunts are not the dead, but the gaps left within us by the secrets of others.”
– Nicholas Abraham
“It is not over until we say so!”
This well-known slogan, used in Turkey in the pursuit of social justice, is also a guiding one for us. This project will not be over until we say so. With this in mind, the team would like to share a few notes on what lies ahead.
Home was a word used by almost all of our interviewees. Questions revolving around home made this project much more interesting and intricate. It was wonderful to meet people from two different countries, each feeling a sense of belonging to the other. At the same time, these meetings demanded compassion, patience, and understanding for wounds that still haven’t healed.
The project originally envisioned only six episodes of podcasts, each approximately 30 minutes long, covering the themes of Memory, Music, Solidarity, Cuisine, Spatial Transformation, and Historiography.
However, the material we collected far exceeded our expectations with more than 50 hours of footage. Therefore, the team decided to extend the content of the episodes.
It became very clear that this project was larger than Skala / İskele alone. From the beginning, we started working on developing a future network that can continue this effort in the years ahead. While Skala / İskele is fully capable of carrying out this project, there were moments when we longed for more. Let this also be a note for those reading these lines: we need you—and we are stronger together!
Around 2008, an urban movement emerged around the historic Emek Theater in Istanbul. In the end, thousands gathered to protect a single cinema from the threat of aggressive gentrification that ultimately led to its demolition. Although the Emek Theater was destroyed, a slogan from that struggle resurfaced years later during the Gezi Uprising in Istanbul in 2013. Many of the same people who had defended the theater joined others to defend a park this time. The slogan was simple:
“This is just the beginning! The struggle continues!”
And indeed, this is just the beginning for Skala / Iskele. The struggle continues!
skalaiskele 