3 days with MASA

Performance

video 01:16:29

2020

An alternative place for Turkish contemporary art scene, Masa Project presented more than 40 artists in 12 years. In 3 days with MASA, Masa becomes both a subject and an object of a performance art. Within the performance, Masa Project has been transformed into a place where possibilities about time and form were explored.

Starting by a curiosity towards what is “behind the scene”, Leman S. Darıcıoğlu shows interest to the one who puts his hand labor to create Masa [the Table], whose name is Mardo Ohanoğlu. Ohanoğlu is an Armenian, born in Turkey in 1947, who worked and lived in Vienna and Munich as a carpenter. He turned back to Istanbul in 1997. In 2006, when Vahit Tuna, a contemporary artist found the project and designed Masa in collaboration with the interior architect Sinem Kurultay, they ask Ohanoğlu to build it. Ohanoğlu passes away in 2009. Darıcıoğlu interviews his wife and working partner to hear his life story. The story starts with his family escaping from Kayseri in 1912 in order to survive and moving to Istanbul; we hear how they had passed through Wealth Tax period and 6-7 September Pogrom.

While Ohanoğlu's story gives us a sum of Turkey's minority politics since 1910s, the interview also includes crafting life, its conditions and current situation in a neo-liberal system of today.

3 Days with MASA was performed for 3 days and 8 hours a day between the 11th and 13th of January 2019 in Büyük Valide Han, situated in the historical area of Istanbul. Within the performance Leman S. Darıcıoğlu had sanded Masa [the Table] while the voice record could be heard inside the space. The livestream of the performance has been displayed at Mardo Ohanoğlu’s shopwindow in Dolapdere, Istanbul.

My letter to the visitor of “3 days with MASA”

A4 size printed letter

2020

THE SPIDER'S MEMORY

A4 size printed letter

2020

www.lemandaricioglu.com