The Meaning of Space: a Brief History of Modern Art in Syria

The depiction of constant movement and decamping, drove artists to come up with nascent tools under shifting and tense conditions. With a clear tendency to overcome that rigorous relationship (identity, self, roots) towards a freer and more direct interaction with the artwork, immersing a new sense, realizing aesthetic and sensational details. Finally, processing them on the canvas or into sculpture.

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Art, SyriaAlaa AlhassounArt, Syria, space
Changing Face of Racism in Turkey

A recent article on the Independent talks about the “changing face of tourism” in Turkey and how it supposedly “burnt a vital bridge between East and West.” In the article, Şebnem Arsu writes about the recent hike of Arab tourists; basically freaking out because some Arab shops have opened instead of Turkish ones and because European tourists have become less visible.

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Is Genocide Denial Anti-Imperialist Now? How Tankies are Taking Over Leftbook and the London Student Scene

These views are like the intellectual manifestation of those inflatable things with flailing arms outside car dealerships. They’re ugly and they don’t make sense. We need to finally dispense with the unconditional celebration of Sovietism. 2017 is over. It’s now 102 years since the Bolshevik revolution, and 102nd anniversaries don’t mean shit.

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Back to its Owners: Queering of Istiklal Avenue

“Cities are unpredictable’’ says writer Teju Cole in his book Open City; “Once you give up insisting on stereotypes, you can really start to see’’. Seeing beyond one’s sight is often difficult especially in project-streets like İstiklal which are designed to hide the unwanted with either a secular Western facade or  AKP’s money-drawing-shopping-star-project-district. In both cases, the real makers of the city are sacrificed in the name of formal, structural change.

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Repression and Snobbery: the Gentrification of Turkish Rap

This is a reflection of how society is already polarised in terms of morality. This polarisation exists in ideas of taste and status but most importantly in the tendency of privileged circles to guard “their” scene against newcomers. It can be argued that this is contemporary Turkey in a nutshell. The ruling class who had the upper hand in setting cultural norms is now faced with the risk of losing things it took for granted.

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Morrissey Isn’t Senile, He’s Always Been a Racist

Morrissey's career has thus far gone unharmed and his views have not been collected. He has an overwhelmingly white fanbase, yet the alternative scene is not adverse to social justice and calling people out. I see a lot of activists in various political realms fighting great fights while failing to confront (or at least distance themselves from) The Problem of Morrissey.

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