Photo Credits: Ozge Ozguner & Meryem Guldurdak (2008)
Dance Performance: Yaz Sara Ersoy
Camera and Editing: Reha Arcan
© Nilbar Gures 2020
The research
Unknown Sports is a concept that I developed between 2007-2009 and an art project created following research executed on it.
As we already know, women, like olympiads, and like mothers, are still free to and supported in coming forward in whichever costumes they please within national and societal identifications. Meanwhile in daily life, a revealing pair of shorts can lead to harassment on the streets.
Throughout these years I met many women from different backgrounds and sexual orientations and asked them what field of sports they would associate their life struggles with, and in the end decided to hold different performances in four different parts of Istanbul.
For these performances I specifically chose holy days like religious holidays or the day that the Iranian president visited Istanbul.
In some performances I chose to become an athelete, placing things that are meant to be holy like bread or a book that had oriental designs under my feet or at times going out on to the street as a female figure with a wedding dress that had a red ribbon around my waist which symbolizes virginity and asking people to undress me. Both areas where I held these performances were very conservative which had very distinctive results. At times the public stopped me and in others, in places I never even expected, I was objected to interferences and threats by undercover policemen.
Now when I look back at the year of 2020 I know that none of these performances could be done right now in Turkey. And we also shouldn’t forget that when a woman is raped, the convict’s sentence is reduced if the victim was wearing a revealing skirt or shorts which is seen as a provocative element...
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The concept from 2008
Unknown Sports
When we feed each other fancy cakes on slippery
satin sofas or want to taste the auntʼs breast milk who
has freshly delivered, there is something queer to it.
Also, in cleaning, in being a slave there is big potential
for a sports career. We could have been high jumpers
instead of mop window cleaners, sprinters instead of
shop runners, shot-putting instead of holding our siblings
in our arms.
There are sports and sports arenas you donʼt know of.
The living room holds the possibility of suddenly turning
into a hippodrome, the bedroom may unexpectedly
become a fighting ring...
Nilbar Güres / February, 2008
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#BURAKÖZGÜNER
