The 2010s might be remembered as the era of protest, with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations against economic inequality and corporate greed in New York City and the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong being two prime examples. When the Gezi Park protests over urban development, authoritarianism, and police violence erupted in her home city of Istanbul in the summer of 2013, Turkish artist and academic Işıl Eğrikavuk was struck by how much the demonstrators’ spontaneous acts of collaborative creativity resembled the community art practices she had studied in art school. As these protests fizzled out or were purposefully squashed, she wondered if art could help keep their spirit alive.
Eğrikavuk’s resulting book, Global Protests Through Art: collaboration, co-creation, interconnectedness (Books People Places, 2024), examines how participatory art practices can be used to build connections and foster social dialogue in restrictive political climates. She joined me over Zoom to discuss the book in light of renewed unrest in both Turkey and the United States. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
People gather and spray-paint slogans during the Gezi Park protests in 2013. “Gazyip Biebiber,” written in the foreground, combines the word “gaz,” meaning “pepper spray,” with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s name. (photo by and courtesy Isil Egrikavuk)
Hyperallergic: What role did you see art and artists playing in Turkey’s Gezi protests a decade ago, and how has this impacted you and your subsequent work?
Işıl Eğrikavuk: Global protests are not just about chanting slogans and marching anymore. What was really eye-opening at Gezi was seeing all these different groups coming together organically and using very creative languages and tools, like singing, dancing, body movement, and graffiti, as well as taking common everyday acts like cooking or doing yoga and bringing them into public space. After Gezi ended, I wanted to look at how artists can use dialogue-based practices to reach different communities and if it would be possible to sustain the collaborative spirit of the protests through art.
H: Why do you think the art world tends to dismiss the role of artists in protest movements?
IE: There are a lot of artists, art collectives, and even bigger exhibitions and biennials that have embraced these practices that might be called art or might be called protest. But when it comes to institutions, we mostly don’t see the same picture because of the money and hierarchies involved.
H: When you began looking more closely at contemporary protest movements around the world for your book, what connections did you find between art practice and political action, and how do you differentiate the two?
IE: What I saw at Gezi and the other protests was especially interesting for me because my focus in my studies was how art can reach non-artist communities and involve them in producing — what we call “co-creation” today. These kinds of efforts look for ways that art can be practiced not just by the artist as the authority, as the “genius,” but in a way that creates a multiplication of voices, so everyone can let out their creative potential.
The creative actions during Gezi have strong resemblances to art, but the difference is the context. Take the guerrilla gardening projects that I write about in my book: Depending on the context, you could call this gardening, or an art action, or a protest.
Still of interview between Işıl Eğrikavuk and members of the collective HAH
H: How do you think that art can help sustain the collaborative spirit of mass political action in more repressive times?
IE: My main question was: How can we take these collaborative, spontaneous, collective, anonymous, witty, performative qualities expressed organically during the protests and apply them in an artistic setting to help re-create this interconnectedness amid a heavily censored environment? I spent a year collaborating with six different artistic and ecology-oriented collectives in Turkey, and what I found was that working collectively was primarily about meeting emotional needs rather than having a shared artistic understanding. It created an emotional safety network that could help transform fear and anxiety into action. Once artists have this feeling of safety themselves, they can invite others to be part of it as well.
H: How has the legacy of the Gezi-era protests influenced the recent protests in Turkey following the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a leading opposition figure?
IE: The demands and demographics of the protesters have changed, but we still see this humorous, creative language — both textual and visual — of political expression. What’s been very visible in the media were these quick performative acts, like the appropriation of the Pikachu cartoon character into a protest symbol or things like dancing, marriage proposals, collective readings, game-playing, or performing the namaz [ritual prayers] in front of the police. Incorporating these kinds of everyday acts into protest actions can be traced to Gezi.
H: What lessons can be learned from protest movements you’ve studied that are applicable to this current global period of rising authoritarian and antidemocratic backsliding?
IE: My research started at the point when the Gezi protests were violently stopped, and I noticed a real drawing inwards among artists in Istanbul. There was a lot of fear around speaking out and also a lot of censorship, not just of artists but also of academics and any other kind of protests. Now we see censorship heavily in the US as well, against academia, against the arts, cutting off major funds and exchange programs, cutting off different voices.
It’s hard to raise your voice when we are so much under threat. But starting something together is the biggest step. I’m not calling for a big action, I’m just saying, reach out to your fellow artists, start by working with what you have. The power of everyday action, of coming together, is not something to be underestimated.
