An exhibition and series of debates exploring the impact of food production on the climate, staged by Cooking Sections, a London=based duo who examine food instructure. Interestingly the event coincides with the anniversary of Turkey’s First Geography Congress, convened in Ankara in 1941, which identified seven regions in Turkey by topography, climate, vegetation and agriculture. It is fascinating to see just how much things have ‘drifted’.
The show begins with five commissioned works, Weathered, on the ground floor of SALT Beyoğlu, a “prosthetic” forest of material records of historic droughts and famines in Anatolia. Unicum (2021) delves into the phenomenon of the accelarating Mediterraneanization of the Black Sea, where changes in water temperature and salinity cause migration of species and the emergence of new habitats. The Lasting Pond (2021) digs into the shrinking of wetlands on the periphery of Istanbul by tracking water buffaloes along their wallowing routes. Traces of Escapees (2021) dives into the sea to diagnose the pollution caused by fish farms and the subsequent genetic erosion of local types. For those still standing, Exhausted (2021) undoes the tales of soil and human fertility from the Neolithic age in the so-called Fertile Crescent, to explore the crisis of infertility and the subsequent expansion of IVF facilities and treatments in contemporary Istanbul.
The event is organised under the aegis of the EU-backed Our Many Europes project, a four-year programme initiated in 2019, with support from the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development and the Goethe-Institut.
By Nicholas Haslam with photogrpahs by Paul Veysseyre