Fatma Çelik
LOOKING AT A HELL
The walks we took to outside of the city from the convoluted and narrow streets of my childhood usually crossed Hevsel. Bags full of lettuce, basil, dittander and many others used to come from Hevsel, or as others put it ‘The Garden of Eden’. I don’t know about Adam or Eve but we considered ‘Efsel’ a paradise since we fell on earth…
Travelers that passed through Diyarbekir wrote about the taste of watermelons weighing close to 100 kilos, and uniquely delicious peaches, and how they have encountered hundreds of type of birds; whereas certain poets focused on the haram [forbidden] waters of the city flowing to Hevsel at some point in time: “Haram sudan atladım, mantin çarşaf topladım, muradım olsun diye her derdine katlandım.” [I jumped over the haram water, I collected mantin sheets, I put up with all your troubles just to have good luck.]
I don’t know whether the water flowing to Hevsel is haram or not; or those jumping over it get to live their dreams. But, I know that Hevsel does not possess the same diversity of gardens as before and those who used to garden there were displaced after the war in 2015-16. Regardless of it all, Hevsel is standing, and abundantly overflowing.
At first, with inspiration from Hevsel, I wanted to find the paradise gardens of İzmir during the pandemic and go on various journeys with the help of my project partner Merve. What I realized while looking for these gardens was the existence of a radioactive waste dumpsite in Gaziemir Emrez neighborhood, which reminded me of how we are being pushed into a hell rather than a paradise. .
Looking at Gaziemir from Hevsel is like looking at a man-made hell from a paradise on earth, a place beyond human conception. It’s like Omar Khayyam crying out “heaven and hell are both in you”...
Nobody knows the exact date when these two areas came into existence. We don’t know who planted the first tree in Hevsel or how the first radioactive waste ended up in Gaziemir. There were no nuclear energy plants in Turkey at the time. Radioactive substances were not allowed in the country - then, who brought it there, how, and why? These questions are yet to be answered. We don’t know the level of radiation, or how it affects the living organisms there?
The only thing we know well is that there is black smoke coming out from the center of Emrez neighborhood and the smell that is accentuated at night. We hear about the number of cancer cases and anomalies increasing in the neighborhood. We hear about radiation measurements which show that Emrez is home to 7 thousand 219 times more radiation than what’s safe for humans. One thing we don’t know is why there has never been a comprehensive measurement and research conducted in this area.
On top of the pollution caused by radiation, there is information pollution that surrounds it. In order to comment on this two-sided pollution, I tried to match photos that Merve took with the newspaper headlines I wrote and articles published about dumpsite. I stayed loyal to the original design of the newspapers while creating my own news clippings.
Although the trees planted cannot take roots, the neighborhood is still there, animals are herded, chickens digging up the earth, women collect herbs, children play games and the water keeps on flowing.
Once again, Dante cries:
“O rabble, miscreated past all others,
there in the place of which it’s hard to speak,
better if here you had been goats or sheep!”
(Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XXXII, 13-15, tr. Mandelbaum)
Headline-article matches:
İzmir’in orta yerinde radyoaktif atık (Radioactive waste at the heart of İzmir): Sözcü, 14 June 2021
Tehlike büyüyor (Higher risk each day): Cumhuriyet, 26 May 2021
Radyasyon kirliliğine bilgi kirliliği karışıyor (Radiation polluted with info pollution): from Merve Güçlütürk's interviews
Gaziemir’deki artan kanser vakalarının nedeni Europium 152 mi? (Europium 152 linked to the increasing number of cancer cases in Gaziemir?): DHA, 6 January 2021
Çözüm toprakla örtmek mi? (Burying is the solution?): DHA, Yeniçağ, 6 January 2021
Nükleer atık zehir saçıyor (Nuclear waste is poisonous): Cumhuriyet, 25 May 2021
7 bin 219 kat radyasyon! (7219 times the radiation!): Sözcü, 14 June 2021
‘Kapsamlı bir inceleme yapılmalı’ (‘A thorough investigation is needed’): from Merve Güçlütürk's interviews
11 dakikalık ‘Duran Adam’ eylemi (11 minutes of ‘Standing-Still’ action): Gaziemir Belediyesi, 24 August 2021
PROJECT TEAM: FATMA ÇELİK (DİYARBAKIR) & MERVE GÜÇLÜTÜRK (İZMİR) NEWS CLIPPINGS LAYOUTS: SERDAR DARENDELİLER
