Interview: Nilüfer Şaşmazer

Dear Sevince and Oral, I believe it is important to get to know you better in order to understand and explain your work titled “Pray for Rain”, which you have produced for Yanköşe’s third edition, so I want to begin with your background in education. You are both graduates of the Department of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University (2005), could you briefly explain how you passed from architectural practice to the field of design and contemporary art?

SB: In the year 2005, after graduating from the Department of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University we went to Chile, and worked at an architectural firm there. Upon our return, we opened our own studio. Currently, we both continue our studio and teach at MEF University. We hadn’t actually made a conscious plan to progress within the intersection of art and architecture, however, we entered upon this path because of our interest in fields other than architecture. With “Sky Spotting Stop”, which we realized for the New Architecture Program in 2013 organized in collaboration by MoMA/PS1 and Istanbul Modern, “Unexpected Hill” which we realized in London in 2015 for the Royal Academy of Arts and Turkishceramics, and “Lost Barrier” which we realized again in 2015 at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, we found ourselves progressing along the art-architecture trajectory.

OG: I think this also has to do with the liberal environment of Taşkışla during our period there. Thanks to this liberal environment at the school, in a period that began in the 2000s and continued until 2012-13, the mentality that perceived architecture only as producing buildings evolved towards a view that treated architecture from a perspective in relation with the city and other disciplines.

SB: Coincidences also played a role: If, in 2013, we had not won the competition within the scope of the New Architecture Program realized by Istanbul Modern in collaboration with MoMA, and realized the project titled “Sky Spotting Stop”, then perhaps we would not have progressed along this course, because many works and invitations in the intersection of art and architecture came to us with reference to that work.

Your liberal education and interdisciplinary practice developed during a period when a similar approach emerged in contemporary art in Turkey, borders were becoming blurred in the general sense, and that continues to this day.

SB: Yes, when I look back now, I think that even if we hadn’t won that competition at Istanbul Modern, we still wouldn’t have become a firm that works only for the real estate industry. We, for instance, graduated without producing a single housing project. Not that I think that’s absolutely right, quite the contrary, since housing is what is produced most in this country, it is a drawback not to discuss it at the academy; but in part, also as a result of that syllabus, we wanted to produce works involving the public, that was a dream for us, as if the world of architecture was made up of public buildings. We later realized that this wasn’t that easy, but “Sky Spotting Spot” and other public projects helped us progress along the path we dreamed of.

What is the focus of your design and research work in the field of architecture? Your work in the last few years includes temporary and permanent public buildings. Could we say that this is where your practice intersects with art?

SB: The topics we focus on are temporary and permanent public buildings and mostly involve urban issues. For instance, a recently implemented project, the Beylikdüzü Atatürk Cultural Center Renovation Project is a permanent example. Our collaboration with the Boğaziçi and MEF universities on post-earthquake shelter research is another current topic we are working on.

OG: Our works for the public stand out, but we also have works where the employer has been the private sector; for instance, market place projects, factory renovations, housing, coops, involving different scales of implementation, etc. Rather than picking up an existing chart or scheme, in our approach to our projects, we prefer to toy with such charts, to understand and transform them. For a long time now, we have tried to reflect this approach in works ranging from competition projects that keep the firm going, to works that take place within the intersection between art and architecture. If we should return to the question, it isn’t quite possible to make a distinction between projects where our practice intersects with art, or doesn’t. We can speak of such an intersection in every project where we we are able to add in-depth research and experimentality. Since our practice has evolved in this direction, the commissions we receive and our employers have also been subjected to natural selection in the same direction, perhaps.

So, looking back on the past 10 years, what do you think are the common points, or thought patterns in the architectural and artistic projects you have realized? As architects, how would you define your vision of art and design? Or of public space?

OG: When we begin a work, we don’t distinguish between an architectural project and an artistic project. Perhaps we can speak of a distinction between experimental and traditional works. You follow some ideas even if it means you have to jump off a cliff to do so, experimental works allow you to do just that, you don’t have that same luxury in works you produce for the market. That is perhaps a distinction we can speak of. But when I talk about jumping off a cliff, it doesn’t mean we’re chasing rainbows. Quite the opposite, when we look back, in all our ‘experimental’ works, structure and material are at the forefront, and determine the outcome.

What was your departure point for “Pray for Rain” which you created for Yanköşe, which questions did you ask at the outset?

SB: At first, we reacted like architects, and thought, for a second, will there be no spatial user experience, and then we said, perhaps it’s best if there isn’t.

OG: That is because then, you have to activate a different sense of the experiencer, and as a designer you enter into a field unknown to you. This ‘departure from the comfort zone’ is a condition that both challenges and excites us. We imagined this wall, which the people of Istanbul are ‘exposed’ to everyday as they pass by it, saying something about the conditions that are changing Istanbul. Although this is a small site, it is a place which can enter into dialogue not with a neighbourhood or a street, but the entire city. So we departed from the potential of dialogue that could be established.

User experience here is based on visuality, since it isn’t a space that is easy to experience, because of its physical qualities.

SB: Yes, but those difficulties are issues that already exist in our design processes, and if they don’t, we invent them. To be frank, working in a white-cube environment where there are no risks, or where risks have been minimized, is more difficult for us.

OG: It is a space that is right in your face, but because of its scale, it is also a space where it is difficult to perceive the whole. It is the first time we are working on an installation in a vertical space. On the hand, it is exciting in that it offers a terrific field of maneuver, but on the other hand, it is highly vulnerable to all external conditions (wind, rain, snow, sun…). However, the most important reason this kind of work excites us is that we find the opportunity to either challenge this kind of difficulty, or to include it in the project, in order to try new things, and even better than that, make mistakes.

Sometimes you cannot fully picture what you will see when the work is finished. Architects generally have the opposite reaction, they are very proud if they can say, ‘we have managed to fully implement the original sketch I made’; but that does not bring us much excitement, because after all, if it’s going to be the same as the first sketch, then what will we learn from the work? So for Yanköşe, too, at the very beginning, we proposed a movement triggered by rain, but the precise way in which this movement would come about evolved and changed throughout the process. We found ourselves looking for types of underwear elastic in Eminönü, and for natural rubber in Karaköy. Trying to explain the work we had in mind to the people selling these materials in those commercial buildings is in itself a learning process. Thanks to this, we learn about loads of materials, details, combinations and structures that aren’t included in catalogues.

In terms of content, how did you reach the final point? What did the location of Yanköşe in the city whisper to you so that you came up with the idea of an installation that can only be set into motion by rain?

SB: This is a site that exists in our everyday life, it is a place we pass by every day. We also saw the previous works installed at the site. So when we received the invite we were very excited, because the fact that everyone who passes by can relate to the work increases the power of the work we produce. There is a very fine line between the two; we tried to produce a work that anyone could show interest in, but nevertheless a work that did not represent a ‘cliché’. On the other hand, when you try something that you have often imagined and discussed with a certain group; then the inclination of architects to draw and control boundaries becomes something you have to abandon.

In what sense?

SB: That design on paper, that thing which looks perfectly finished, all the details you display, etc., cannot be realized in the same manner, once you place it out in the open. And so we want to work to facilitate some dialogue there, but at the same time, we do not want to give up our own words. We don’t want to speak a different language just to enter into that dialogue. Yanköşe is exactly that kind of place. That’s why we wanted the content to be linked to the city; and we began to think whether the visual communication there could turn into a dialogue, a discussion about the city. It is true that there is polarization in this city, there are certain issues that mean different things to different people, like the construction project right opposite Yanköşe for instance. However, the issue of climate change involves everyone; anyone who passes by the street is affected by it, and has to think about it, regardless of where she or he stands in that polarized world. This was how “Pray for Rain” came about.

OG: As I just said, this is a site that provides a scale where you can enter into dialogue with the city. The most important question was to determine what we wanted to talk about in that dialogue. As we wandered amidst very different ideas, I don’t remember how we found ourselves discussing how rain triggered/changed the people of Istanbul. How does this natural event that brings abundance change the city? The traffic is congested, umbrella sellers hit the streets within seconds, taxis fill up, and flash floods also take place... In brief, awesome change and movement. As we discussed all this, we decided that rain should be the trigger of this work. But that is of course followed by the question, what if it rains very little all winter...

SB: It may be a very dry winter, and then this project will go down in SO? literature as such, and include an element of failure, of course. This risk of failure is quite a frequent condition in our projects.

“Pray for Rain” is in fact a work that features many dualities; it involves both the city and nature, it is both attractive in appearance but still needs another element, it appears abstract but it is concretely functional... And also, it looks melancholic, but it also offers the viewer hope, and recalls a current struggle.

OG: I think this ‘need for an external element’ generally exists in the projects we have designed for public space. “Sky Spotting Spot” depended on the movement of the sea, while “Sky Garden” needed human intervention. And here we will pray for it to rain. But it would perhaps be more accurate to describe this not as needing rain, but rather attempting to embrace its existence, to enter into dialogue with rain rather than trying to combat it. The architecture we see in our part of the world often challenges nature and humanity, it does not greet it with modesty and simplicity.

So how do you think people who pass by, or let’s call them viewers, will react to this work?

OG: Often people react in very interesting ways to mobile works; people can be alarmed if they think something has gone wrong, when the work begins to move as they pass by. We experienced this very clearly at “Sky Spotting Spot”. Once the functioning of the work becomes clear, the viewer begins to enjoy the work. It might be similar here.

Were their elements you drew from your previous works in public space which you kept in mind, or included here?

SB: We don’t generally learn from our mistakes. Of course, the scale here is unfamiliar, so we put a lot of thought into it. Whatever the movement was to be, it had to function in harmony and that has perhaps more to do with architectural education rather than previous experiences.

OG: We also tried to imagine how the work would look from different angles, because looking at works of such scale from close up and from afar produces different experiences. Blek le Rat said, “My architectural education taught me to lift my head up while I walk”, and that was a very important question for us as well; how do we get people to lift there heads up?

SB: Thinking back now, all the hitches we have faced in our previous public projects were caused by bureaucracy. There are things to learn on that side as well, yet each work has such a unique structure. The works are singular, they are not designs that follow a certain theme, so it isn’t possible to directly appropriate something you have learned on one project in another.

OG: What this kind of work can teach you best is how to cope when you come up against a brick wall. And also, your library of materials expands immensely; during this project, wonderful products such as underwear elastic, silicone string, rubber tubes for hospital drips and swordfish fishing lines entered our library.

SB: On the other hand, there can be some very difficult moments during the implementation process. But I think, another thing we have learned is this: An experimental project means there is always a margin of error. Although we produce small-scale works, experimentality is part of the process. And the word ‘experimentality’ which we use so frequently may be very trendy, but then you have to see whether the environment has the capacity to tolerate that, both in terms of the employer and process management. In this sense, this kind of project is closer and more suitable to the intersection between art and architecture. In previous projects we have witnessed that there is more tolerance for the unpredictable in the field of art.

Before you realized “Pray for Rain” at Yanköşe, your design titled “Hope on Water” was exhibited at Arter within the scope of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial. This work, too, treated an issue that is local as much as it is global within the triangle of human-city-nature. Would you like to talk a little about that work as well?

OG: In addition to earthquakes, that project is about the rapid decrease in number of post-disaster assembly areas on land in Istanbul. We tried to draw attention to a situation that is taking place before our eyes, but something people won’t realize before an earthquake strikes. Why, out of the blue, did we decide to build a floating shelter? If we did this anywhere else in the world it may have sounded absurd, but it is meaningful in the current conditions of Istanbul. But it wasn’t an idea that we could pull off with only an architectural team, so from the very beginning of the process we worked with Emre Otay from the Boğaziçi University Coastal Engineering Laboratory. Later, with the participation of Ayfer Bartu Candan from the Department of Sociology at Boğaziçi University, in collaboration with MEF University, it turned into a three-disciplinary –engineering, sociaology, architecture - joint-lesson and the team grew at the exhibition stage to create a 65-person team.

What must one definitely keep in mind when producing a work in public space?

OG: In contrast to a museum or a gallery, public space is a site we are exposed to. You can prefer or not to visit a museum and see what is being exhibited there. But if you pass by the site every day, then you will be exposed to a work in public space. In the same manner, the work is exposed to people, there is no security staff to protect it. For such reasons, the relationship between the work and the experiencer is much more honest. There is a similar exposure when external conditions such as rain, wind, snow and sun are involved. You either challenge the conditions and protect the work (fix it better so it does not fall over in the wind) or you enter into a dialogue with the conditions. However, the most important thing to keep in mind is that the work you have installed in public space is no longer under your control. So the question is: Are you ready for that, or not?