This project examines warfare and urban redevelopment as interconnected forms of state violence that have altered the social and physical fabric of urban societies, such as Sur, Turkey.
For 2,000 years, Sur has been inhabited by a variety of civilizations that have left behind diverse cultural sites and a heterogeneous population. Today, Sur is the historic center of Diyarbakir in south-eastern Turkey and is home to many Kurdish communities.
Following the Turkish state's repression of the Kurdish Liberation movement in the 1980s and 1990s, internally displaced Kurdish people resettled in Sur and created a communal neighborhood culture shaped by the old city’s traditional narrow streets and multi-family houses. The Turkish state considered these neighborhoods illegitimate and noncompliant with the historical texture of Sur, and by the early 2000s the government was producing plans to dispossess and transform the troublesome “irregularity” of the space. These early plans were stalled due to local resistance only to be resumed through different means in 2015 with the beginning of military operations across Kurdish majority regions by the state in reaction against declarations of autonomy by the Kurdish Liberation movement.
Tens of thousands of people were displaced in Sur as their homes were destroyed or damaged, setting the stage for the erasure of the built environment. Of the people and places that survived, almost half would be displaced and destroyed in the following years as the government revitalized their plans for transforming much of Sur into profitable luxury housing.
This relationship between military and civic destruction allowed the state to uproot much of the Kurdish community that called Sur home. The demolition and subsequent construction of a large part of the city and the people's emotional reactions shine light on the intangible yet powerful connections between space, memory, and identity.
Our goals:
- archive testimony of the destruction of Sur;
- narrate the destruction with a multi-media timeline;
- map the phases of destruction with interactive tools; and
- tour the city accompanied by witness testimony.
We invite you to explore these changes on the personal, communal, and spatial levels.
"Enter Sur" to begin the walking tour.