Visual Contentions in Contemporary Turkish Politics

Political con­ten­ti­ons influ­ence visu­al sphe­re, as much as the visu­als help mobi­li­ze public affects. 2013’s Gezi Movement was home to several crea­ti­ve examp­les of visu­al acti­vism that were instru­men­tal for chal­len­ging the exis­ting under­stan­dings of dis­sent in Turkey. Much of this acti­vism also found its way online through social media plat­forms, blogs, and archi­ves. On the other hand, sin­ce a mili­ta­ry coup attempt have hit the coun­try in 2016, a cer­tain anger and com­mit­ment to vin­di­ca­ti­on seem to have been expan­ding and taking over the visu­al pro­duc­tion and dis­se­mi­na­ti­on online. This talk invi­tes to take a look at the poli­ti­cal image­ries of two mobi­liz­a­ti­ons and con­ten­ti­ons across them.

M. Ragıp Zık is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin, working on con­tem­pora­ry visu­al prac­ti­ces in poli­ti­cal strugg­le. His pro­ject draws upon con­cepts of collec­ti­ve iden­ti­ty, ico­no­gra­phy, and affect. Ragıp has pre­vious­ly rese­ar­ched on artis­tic prac­ti­ces, collec­ti­ve memo­ry, and resis­tance cul­tures. Before joi­ning to aca­de­mia, he run several years of com­mu­ni­ty-buil­ding pro­jects in the Euro-Mediterranean area and Caucasus. He is cur­r­ent­ly a board mem­ber of International Sociological Association’s Visual Sociology Research Committee.