Two Arsenals, One Vessel. Turkey at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale

Turkish pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, installation view, photo © Inexhibit, 2016

Darzanà. Two Arsenals, One Vessel
Turkish pavilion at the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture

Darzanà, the word from which the exhibition of Turkey at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale takes its name, refers to the shared root of the terms tersane and arsenale, meaning shipyard in Turkish and Italian, respectively.

The exhibition features a large vessel, or rather the phantom of a vessel, made in Istanbul with some five hundred pieces recovered from the dismantling of decommissioned ships and reassembled in Venice thereafter.

The 30-meter-long dummy ship, named Baştarda, symbolizes the common heritage of Venice and Istanbul, and the infringement of barriers that divide the two Mediterranean cities, which have so much in common and that, nevertheless, have taken different directions a long time ago.

Istanbul, indeed, is today a megalopolis – now facing the migration wave coming from the South – with large, largely abandoned, shipyards that are more and more attracting attention based on conflicting interests due to its exclusive position on the city’s waterfront.

On the other side, Venice has become a “museum city”, which has lost most of its population and production capability.

Therefore, that simulacrum of a vessel is there to narrate stories that bind two cities together, to embody an exhortation to create common strategies, and to advance collaborative projects aimed to foster the common good across all Mediterranean countries.

All photos © Inexhibit, 2016