PRALINE #mag
4. Everything in its right place – In conversation with Emrah Gökdemir
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“Everything in its right place – Planting Artemisia Annua on the wall of Elbasan Fortress”, Emrah Gökdemir / 17.10.2021 / Elbasan (Albania)
Emrah, you where part of a performative journey project on the “Via Egnatia” from July to October 2021. Where did this route take you, who organized the project?
Via Egnatia is an ancient roman road that today runs through the territories of the states of Albania, Northern Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. I was one of the workshop leaders together with Pawel Korbus and Iva Korbar who, together with Mitost e.V., Culture Routes Society Turkey, Tirana Ekspres, Paths of Greece and Art Society Open Studio Poland, developed and implemented a one-year project. During that time I was doing an artist residency and continuing my artistic research at HALLE 14 / Spinnerei. On a 16 days joint field trip through Turkey, Greece and Albania in July 2021, we researched places to hold workshops and performative events that took place in September and October of 2021. During some of the research trips we spent time with the residents to talk about their lives and about artistic methods for working through these stories. We ended up organizing four days of workshops and a performative presentation day in each of the choosed sites in Demre (Turkey), Elbasan (Albania) and Edessa (Greece).
What was the intention?
On the field trips, in the workshops and performative actions we wanted to deal with the cultural-historical heritage and its meaning for the present of the respective places. Through performative elements and methods, we tried to open up unusual ways of perceiving and understanding of our surroundings. Based on local knowledge and practices such as music, dances, games, rituals, childhood memories performative actions were developed.
The Group performance “‘Bringing Saint George’ Elbasan” is a good example to explain the process and connection between the field research, the workshops and performative actions.
During the research in Elbasan we discovered a tiny church in the basement of a house. A small door was leading to it and a man, who first appeared in ordinary clothes, suddenly put on his priest clothes and introduced us to this hidden holy place. He explained, that this is a church, nearly 2000 years old, and it was full of icons. I realized that there was no Saint George icon here, and I promised to bring one to the father (@nikollaxhufka) on our next visit. Later on our journey I found this icon in Thessaloniki, where the Egnatia road also passes, on a market. Three months later, together with the artists group and an audience I fullfilled my promise and handed it over to the father during a performance. It was a suprising act, as a part of the performance I met him in front of the house and asked: “Do you remember, what I promised you to bring …?”
“Bringing Saint George”, group action, 17.10.2021, Elbasan
In the performance workshops and performative actions you wanted to highlight what the places trigger in us, what they remind us of, what they refer to.
Yes, in the historic center of Elbasan for example we had the impression that all the things are behind the doors, and there is no one outside. In the Duo performance “The Gossip” by Samanda Sulaj (Albania) & Melisa Kurtuluş (Turkey) the performers are just sitting in front of a house on a street, drinking coffee, cracking sunflower seeds and gossiping about passers-by. The Elbasan inner castle area reminded Melisa to her hometown in Antakya, but without people in the streets. She asked herself where actually everyday live takes place. Samanda, an albanian participant discribed the background of the performance with a very interesting common behaviour of the locals in Elbasan: When something happens in the streets, people stop, start to eat sunflower seeds and watch the situation.
“The Gossip” by Samanda Sulaj & Melisa Kurtuluş, 17.10.2021, Elbasan
The artists were also investigating historical-political dimensions of still existing architectures and their meaning for the present.
During the performance “Dismissed captivity” in the ancient center of Edessa, the participant Hüseyin Eryurt was dealing with the so called “column of liberation”, where the owner of slaves traditionally wrote down the names of their former slaves after they got their freedom. In front of a dry fontain in a nearby abandonded factory the artists decided to read out loud out of the book of a famous storyteller named Evliya Çelebi, who wrote down the names of 16 Arabic slaves, to give them freedom finally. He linked the historical testimony of a procedure of freeing the slaves with the current water politics of the government. Edessa is labeled as the “city of water”, but in reality the water is under control since the government built a dam wall for electricity production and open the waterfalls only from time to time.
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„Dismissed captivity“, Hüseyin Eryurt, 24.10.2021, Edessa (Griechenland)
What was the target audience? Who could participate? How did you invite them?
Our calls for active participation in the programs were addressed to artists on the one hand, but also to local actors, residents, guides, teachers … Involving the local population was a goal, but we also took into account that they lead their own lives, with all the responsibilities. They have animals to care for and land to cultivate. That’s why we included the presentation day, because not everyone has four days to attend a workshop.
What were the reactions to the certainly unusual formats?
Many people on site had never seen anything like a performance before. Their expectations of a performance were often irritated at first. But in the end, it still made sense to them. In Demre I made the performance “Before you”. In this performance I was on a ladder with a scale and used herbs that I collected around the Lycian Civilisations Museum, pointed on certain persons and said: I was not here – there was thyme – you were not here – there was figs – all you were not here, but there was carob, there was pelargonium. Then I played with balance by placing this plant on one side of the scale that I hold in my left hand. I diversified the speech with the verbs to ‘hear’, ‘see’ and ‘know’, and compared myself and the audience with plants and continued to put plants on different beams of the scale. In this performance, in which I drew attention to the virtue of plants with their witnessing for centuries, I aimed to share an awareness with the audience through different ways of perceiving a place, especially such historical and cultural places. A small girl came to me afterwards and said: “Your performance was very good, I never heard all the names of these plants”. Other people were mocking me imitating my performance behind my back and shouting “I was not there … you were …” But this was just for fun and in a friendly way. Some visitors thanked me with the words, that the performance was very simple but so meaningful to them. A professor for Cultural and natural heritage from the university in Elbasan was very interested in the methodology of percieving the surrounding. Together with a colleage she even produced a movie documentation of the project to show it to her students.
The collaborative project was mainly based on exchange – in the group, with the local residents, with the audience. Did you also develop and discuss the performances in a collaborative group process?
The workhops had another design in each place. But in general we trained body awareness, tried to build up a group feeling, to deal with the space and perception with the aim to conceptionalize it for a performative event. We developed some group actions and the group process had an important role, but we also pushed solo performances to highlight very own stories and experiences.
What was the relationship between performers and spectators? To what extent were you involved or could you participate? Did you interact?
Pawel Korbus made a public performance at the Edessa waterfalls. He discovered a “hate speech” tag against LGBT, anarchist and communist people at the stones and decided to scream through a megaphone: “Look, what is written here! I don’t accept this.” He invited random people to lay on the floor to hide the hate speech with their bodies. About 20 people participated, also locals, random people…
Can you describe your impressions about the effect on the mood of the people in this collective moment?
This performance took place at the waterfall, where the entire crowd of tourists was. When Pawel took the megaphone in his hand and started to speak, he drew all attention to us and as soon as we reached that place, many people did this action directly with him, and I think it was a very special moment. We were still on the ground for a while, I remember closing my eyes: on the one hand, the powerful sound of the waterfall, and our own voices that we impovedly added to it. I believe it was one of those magical moments when the intense power of art was revealed.
![]()
“In this place you can split on me”, Pawel Korbus, 24.10.2021, Edessa Wasserfälle
“Everything in its right place” was the title of a performance by Emrah Gökdemir, where he planted Artemisia Annua on the wall of the Elbasan fortress. The performance took part in the final Show in Elbasan (Albania) on October 17th, 2021.
→ www.instagram.com/viaeurasia
a series of talks by Ex_Praline und Verlag Trottoir Noir, 2021
Yvonne Anders, conversation and editing; Marcel Raabe, editing
During the performance “Dismissed captivity” in the ancient center of Edessa, the participant Hüseyin Eryurt was dealing with the so called “column of liberation”, where the owner of slaves traditionally wrote down the names of their former slaves after they got their freedom. In front of a dry fontain in a nearby abandonded factory the artists decided to read out loud out of the book of a famous storyteller named Evliya Çelebi, who wrote down the names of 16 Arabic slaves, to give them freedom finally. He linked the historical testimony of a procedure of freeing the slaves with the current water politics of the government. Edessa is labeled as the “city of water”, but in reality the water is under control since the government built a dam wall for electricity production and open the waterfalls only from time to time.
„Dismissed captivity“, Hüseyin Eryurt, 24.10.2021, Edessa (Griechenland)
What was the target audience? Who could participate? How did you invite them?
Our calls for active participation in the programs were addressed to artists on the one hand, but also to local actors, residents, guides, teachers … Involving the local population was a goal, but we also took into account that they lead their own lives, with all the responsibilities. They have animals to care for and land to cultivate. That’s why we included the presentation day, because not everyone has four days to attend a workshop.
What were the reactions to the certainly unusual formats?
Many people on site had never seen anything like a performance before. Their expectations of a performance were often irritated at first. But in the end, it still made sense to them. In Demre I made the performance “Before you”. In this performance I was on a ladder with a scale and used herbs that I collected around the Lycian Civilisations Museum, pointed on certain persons and said: I was not here – there was thyme – you were not here – there was figs – all you were not here, but there was carob, there was pelargonium. Then I played with balance by placing this plant on one side of the scale that I hold in my left hand. I diversified the speech with the verbs to ‘hear’, ‘see’ and ‘know’, and compared myself and the audience with plants and continued to put plants on different beams of the scale. In this performance, in which I drew attention to the virtue of plants with their witnessing for centuries, I aimed to share an awareness with the audience through different ways of perceiving a place, especially such historical and cultural places. A small girl came to me afterwards and said: “Your performance was very good, I never heard all the names of these plants”. Other people were mocking me imitating my performance behind my back and shouting “I was not there … you were …” But this was just for fun and in a friendly way. Some visitors thanked me with the words, that the performance was very simple but so meaningful to them. A professor for Cultural and natural heritage from the university in Elbasan was very interested in the methodology of percieving the surrounding. Together with a colleage she even produced a movie documentation of the project to show it to her students.
The collaborative project was mainly based on exchange – in the group, with the local residents, with the audience. Did you also develop and discuss the performances in a collaborative group process?
The workhops had another design in each place. But in general we trained body awareness, tried to build up a group feeling, to deal with the space and perception with the aim to conceptionalize it for a performative event. We developed some group actions and the group process had an important role, but we also pushed solo performances to highlight very own stories and experiences.
What was the relationship between performers and spectators? To what extent were you involved or could you participate? Did you interact?
Pawel Korbus made a public performance at the Edessa waterfalls. He discovered a “hate speech” tag against LGBT, anarchist and communist people at the stones and decided to scream through a megaphone: “Look, what is written here! I don’t accept this.” He invited random people to lay on the floor to hide the hate speech with their bodies. About 20 people participated, also locals, random people…
Can you describe your impressions about the effect on the mood of the people in this collective moment?
This performance took place at the waterfall, where the entire crowd of tourists was. When Pawel took the megaphone in his hand and started to speak, he drew all attention to us and as soon as we reached that place, many people did this action directly with him, and I think it was a very special moment. We were still on the ground for a while, I remember closing my eyes: on the one hand, the powerful sound of the waterfall, and our own voices that we impovedly added to it. I believe it was one of those magical moments when the intense power of art was revealed.
“In this place you can split on me”, Pawel Korbus, 24.10.2021, Edessa Wasserfälle
“Everything in its right place” was the title of a performance by Emrah Gökdemir, where he planted Artemisia Annua on the wall of the Elbasan fortress. The performance took part in the final Show in Elbasan (Albania) on October 17th, 2021.
→ www.instagram.com/viaeurasia
a series of talks by Ex_Praline und Verlag Trottoir Noir, 2021
Yvonne Anders, conversation and editing; Marcel Raabe, editing