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Antakya Perform

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MANIFEST

NAHNOO  Jessica Chemali, Farah Makki

Antakya Performative CollectiveEmrah Gokdemir, Melisa Kurtulus

NAHNOO and AntakyaPerformative Collective gathered

advocates for urban change andartists to transgress the borders of

disciplines and nations for thesake of reconquering the sense of

public space.  “Performing in-visible borders” is the product of a

participatory performative artproject where children, artists,

volunteers and activists tellstories of transition from the

illusion of control to the freedomof practicing the largest public

park in Beirut.

THEUNSTAT

ED

For someone who livedby the borders most ofmy childhood, borderstend to be related toconflict such as politicalboundaries between twocountries; and themeaning is engraved inmyself with a negativesense of defeat andrestrictions. Thisworkshop remains anopportunity to go farbeyond the visible,focusing on the scales ofborders from themanifest to the unstated,mostly the unstated. Wedecided on a commongoal searching for spatialequity within the samecommunity where humanvalues are the key.

Borders are political lines transecting spacesinto geopolitical, cultural, economic and socialspheres expressing the power of exclusion. In a

time of increasing conflicts and migration,national borders are being duplicated by local

internal borders within a country. Spatialfrontiers between cities, neighborhoods, andcommunities are being constantly created to

distinguish landscapes of the ethnic, gender andreligious groups. What used to separate two

countries into administrative divisions is moreand more turning into “a frontier of

communities” and “citizens.” These new urbanborders are dividing a city into distinct zones of

homogeneous identities, often impermeablebetween each other.

 Beirut is a tangible example of how invisibleboundaries between districts control urban

mobility. Am I welcomed or not? Are constantinterrogations that shape the spatial mobility ofpasserby and citizens in Beirut. “East and West

Beirut” and other verbal connotations inheritedfrom the Civil War (1975-1990) still mark the

city's geography and the freedom of movementin the space of the Lebanese capital.

The fear of meeting diversity not only affectsurban mobility but also the practice of public

spaces. Horsh Beirut is a significant example ofhow a physical space can constitute a frontier

between communities. The largest green area inBeirut dis connects three political geographiesof the Capital the Christian of Badaro, The Chiaof Chiyah and the Sunni of asqas. This specific

strategic, yet sensitive, location eroed thepractice of the green space for decades. Horsh

Beirut reflected the danger of tensions after thecivil war and concreti ed the fear from the other

in a spatial dimension. This unique publicgarden was nearly canceled from the city smemory, forgotten and ignored by young

generations until . 

n practice and for long years, Beirut residentshad become deprived of their right to enjoy the

park. This led NAHNOO, a youth non-governmental organi ation, to spearhead the

"Horsh Beirut for All" advocay campaign tochallenge the situation in late which led toits reopening to the public years later, in .

CON

the (un)Welcome

Since 2016, Horsh Beirut is open to thepublic every day under specific conditions.

The park's morphology produces barriersthat limit people's practice. Several gates

that give access to the park are officiallyclosed. A fence divides the park into two

zones, and visitors from adjacentneighborhoods are not allowed to cross

from one side to the other. Three highwaysmark the park edges and separate it from

the surroundings like a green islandhardly accessible for the pedestrian.

 At the official gate, people are examined

and prevented from bringing a number ofitems, such as a football, a camera, or even

a picnic blanket."Not allowed" signs arespread in the park ordering people not to

get on the grass, not to climb on the hill,not to enter the green school, and much

more.

Visibleborders

TOSP CT ON

NT OSPCTON

Sometimes, borders take the form of writtenorders… Hours are also a form of a written order. They trigger our reactions to accept them or not;they control our right to access or not. And other

times borders are neither physical nor explicitand we discover them in our daily life. These are

the "borders" that shape how we behave, theypredict who we talk to, when and where we

choose to go. They control our ability to enter acountry, a private property, or any space...

These borders have gatekeepers who control our

entry and exit.

[4 daysago I wasnot ok,and Ineeded togo out, Ithoughtaboutgoing toHorshBeirutandrealizedthat itwas 3pm, Yetthe parkopens till1 pm.]

[3 years agoI wanted to

go toIstanbul, tomeet artists

to beinspired

from. When Itried to go, I

discoveredthat my

father had apolitical

background,and due to

this issue thevisa was

revoked.]

THEYASKED

me : where are youfrom?I said: I am fromAntakya.They said: no, you arenot from Antakya.I said why I am not fromAntakya,they said: because ofyour talking [accent],[…] They wanted to knowwhich ethnicity I am.And they did not acceptthat I am Antiochianbecause I am not Sunni].

Borders can be genetic or inherited a handicap,a religion, a community affiliation, a language, acountry are all undecided conditions imposingus our first inner borders. There is often a projection of social borders tomy own self. udgments, expectations, and habitsare a system of control. Self-judgement is asocial construction, constituting an active factorthat controls the relation to the other andregulates the grade of openness.

ast year sharedmy class ith an

Armenian personand e talked

about theArmenian

enocide This is asensitive issue for

both of us each onehas his her o n

vision and his hero n story At the

end of the class ebecame friends

and e found somany common

thin s like cultureand food etc

Ho ever it is hardthese days to find

friends fromdifferent

back rounds

O

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IN/OUT

A different accent, a new haircut, a friendlylook, or a joyful smile, might trigger strong

stereotypes and the eruption of suddenborders between others and me. y skin is

my bubble. am my own bubble.Anonymous, my body exhibit superficial

signs on the surface of the skin. y corporalsurface exhibits messages of representation

for the outer world and may hide my truenature. Am delivering my true self or am

exposing a version of my self 

decided to exhibit some information aboutme selectively. can make very quick

judgments about others personalities too...How do read the other the first time meethim or her irst sight impression can build

borders or affinities with others byprojecting myself onto the other. Projectingmy values and my understandings and myexperiences can trace limits the mirror of

self is a border. 

hat does Horsh Beirut express at firstglance The park outer metallic skin exhibit

different signs of undesirability. The lock,the fence, the barbed wires and closed gates, they shape the fa ade. Planted hills on theedges also prevent from seeing the central

core. A network of negative signs isobscuring the reality of the park, deliveringthe image of an inaccessible spatial bubble...

a leftover.

shavedmy headthey startedcallin melesbian Theinformationcirculatedand spreadall over theuniversity

CONS

TCT

CONS

TCT

construct and deconstruct the borders illusionby choice of experimenting the real facts. Two

doors mark the gate on the southern side. Bothseem closed… A hole caught our attention on the

lateral side of the first access… e enter … Thegrass is high… the site looks like a leftover… et wecross and push the next gate… the door opens and

we are inside. s it a transgression or a right toenter Should a rule be accepted when it hinders

the access to public realm 

Can critici e the legitimacy of a dominant ruleHow can decide if a rule should be or not be

effective How can allow myself to practice mypublic right And, who rule the borders in the

space of public interest 

enter from the stated informally… startlistening more intently to my environment,

allowing all stimuli in without making judgments.

at acertainpoint thereare a lot ofbordersand at thesame timeand placethere arenoborders

CAmore a are of ho toe plore the materialconte t of mysurroundin s in Horsh

eirut There as aharmony bet een us

hile doin ane ercise that brou ht

ood ener y andmade me think t isup to us to decide homany borders e setfor ourselves y usinthe body uided ithspirit and mind ecan break them

around me observe thechildren ho are so ea er

to interact

The park as alive fullof people and the kidsere like bees kids are

the ones to learn from toreduce borders to be

creative to connect ithnature and ith park

users urin theeekend sa

borderless kidstransformin the Horsh

into a playful ardenThey ere connectin to

nature playin ithflo ers and soil climbintrees and interactin ithpeople they don t kno

[I understood that itwasn't about

borders. It’s moreabout us and how

we perceive limits…present things that

we do not mind, andother absent stuff

that we avoid].

SHIFTINGTHESTATEOF MIND,

ACHILD

I CAN BE

e are dan ere crossed linese touched stonese laid do n on the

rasse disturbed peoplee built allse cau ht the runnerse san a son

And e could do moree started from the innerorld and e finishedith ne otiation ith the

official rule

COO

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order needs uard And first uard is self

reakin boundaries throu h sin in a son catchthe borders push the borders

A border is a passive a ressive ne otiation

Our starting point was the disconnection from the natural world. It is like acollective trauma, a relationship with our history and inner insanity.  ow oftendo we touch the earth with our body ow often do we feel the soil, grass, rocks,air with our skin ow often do we drink water directly from a natural source

ow often do we spend time in nature without barrier     ature was our home but contemporary urban living disconnects us fromnatural world. uman being has created an artificial boundary betweenhumans and other beings. e are also losing our human connection physicallyand emotionally. And it is bringing more and more boundary layers out. id weforget where we come from owadays we are trying to find connection withourselves and the others and bring nature back into our urban life.

e used ironic and interactive way as a border practice that catches, pushesand crosses boundaries by our body and mind. e started from our inner worldto reconnect with ourselves since we forgot where we come from. e aredanger e crossed the lines e touched the historical stones e laid downon the grass e built the human wall e run to people e caught therunners e sang a song And we could do more

e finished our performance by a negotiation with the guardian. A guard oforsh Beirut was a symbol of authority. e run towards him and we tried to

forced him to come and sing with us. It was something unthinkable for him.This surprisingly attack generated confusion in his mind.  Could you arrestme It was a uestion that aimed to challenge fi ed rules and forbidden clich sand made people uestion their perceptions of rules and borders.

N HO SH TME SA K RT S, PA E K RB S

S دائم A O AĞAN

orsh Beirut, in the Levant, has collapsed as the result of wars, occupations, anddestruction in the historical conte t of the city. The current geometric shape of

orsh Beirut is triangular and divided into three parts. As a result of politicalconflicts, orsh Beirut has been divided into a secular area and is no longerpublic and accessible. Thus, the current situation of the park represents thepainful reality of the city, which is normal nowadays, and the genes of thisgeography became more visible and obvious.  The different cultural and beliefs surrounding the park in the region is a localfactor. The Orontes is a northward flowing river which begins in Lebanon andflows to Antakya, the city I was born in, before entering the Mediterranean ea.The Orontes iver which is older than orsh Beirut tries to keep the positiveconnection and vibes flowing through the river by crossing the geo politicalborders of three countries that have been separated although they share asimilar culture, food and traditions. Although for many, Orontes river is anatural border yet It has connected the civili ations through time.

N HO SH TKENAN N RAY N-

Performance descriptionThe water hose geographically symbolizes the Orontes River, the Horsh andboth visible and invisible sides of Beirut City. The historical context ortimelines is symbolized by the walk, which often comes with a differentrhythm, and it also represents the phases Horsh Beirut has gone through. Thus,it indicates the transition between the visible and invisible borders and also itrepresents the resistance movement against the repressive mindset andcorruption.  While taking steps up and down on the water hose that’s been stretched outalong the grass. Pausing at some selected point and fixes a red cable tie aroundthe hose which indicates events occurred on Horsh Beirut during the historicalcontext. The performance continues to attach more cable ties until his browsweats and he gasps for air.The park is divided into three parts and each part has an entrance, referring tothe three-main belief system. Thus, the hose has three entrances marked in redand given the triangle shape which is the current geographical shape of HorshBeirut and inside the triangle, the quote of Ibn Khaldoun is visible for theaudience and the performance ends right after.  According to Ibn Khaldun, geography is destiny. The quote means that there'snothing called race or nationality but there's geography. So, whoever has thesunstroke in his geography, has more tanned his skin is and whoever has less,his skin stays white. Thus, before judging someone based on his skin color orwhere he's from, just take a moment and think, what if you were born in hisgeography... Unfortunately, where are you from is the most racist and separatist questionused in our daily life. "I'm from the Earth."

N N SO S

From a nomadic lifestyle to civili ation, rugs/carpets have had the ability toreshape everything and they not only meet some of the most basic humanneeds within the home, but they have also long contributed to the evolution ofsociety as it has come to be known. From the dramatic impact of weaving sgenesis on nomadic peoples to eventual nourishment of entire segments ofcivili ation, the emergence of rugs, on a large scale, is a noteworthy historicaloccurrence. Across the ancient Oriental world till today, rugs have been playinga substantial role in religious practices, everyday life or cultural practices atalmost every region... in this meaning, they point to the collective memory. 

hen I am walking through the city of Antakya or along the coast, I used to seecarpets/rugs left on the ground, as living ob ects . They served with their ownheritage to someone s life or place and now turned to be a waste. eflecting onthe Levant and its communities with its borders created by political powers, acarpet appears to my mind as a border itself. A border with its own shape, aborder to life, a border to a place, a border for a community and a border forgeography... I used carpet washing tradition as a motif in my performance.Though I didn t wash it with detergent I merged the carpet with the soil andwater to integrate it in the ground. I tried to vanish the corners. I tried to mergecultures. I tried to merge them back into the same roots: the soil. Myperformance was perhaps about asking nature to take back all the fabricatedborders we invented individually or socially. My performance was aimed toenlightening and challenging, raising uestions and encouraging audiences todelve deeper into particular incidents about national, social or individualborders regarding the Levant history.

N HO SH TEMRAH G K EM R

Thanks for

simulated a layful shiftfrom unconsciousness totrans ression of borders.Performers investi atedillusionary controls, andembraced the child s irit torecon uer the freedom of

racticin urban commons.This ublication is the

roduct of a collectiverebellion to the illusionaryim ossible, a reward for a

reat collective effort.

NAHNOO &AntakyaPerformativeCollective

Supported by Tandem Turkey

Abdelnour AkyüzFatima AssimiYara Bou AkarJessica Chemali- AdvocateJoelle ChemaliMehmet Fahraci- ArtistEmrah Gokdemir - ArtistNancy HaddadRemi HamzehPawel Korbus- ArtistMelisa Kurtulus- ArtistFarah Makki - AdvocateNour MakkiMarie-Jean MalekKenan Nuraydin- ArtistElyesh SdMoussa ShabandarSirena Tannoury and for all the children...

Thanks for the Municipality of Lublin for financing an artist mobility

Tandem Turkey is an initiative, which was developed by the European Cultural Foundation(Amsterdam) and MitOst (Berlin) in collaboration with Anadolu Kültür(Istanbul). http://www.tandemforculture.org

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