International Visitors Programme: Refresh Amsterdam with Kübra Uzun

For Refresh Amsterdam, writer, philosopher and curator Simon(e) van Saarloos and Turkish DJ and activist Kübra Uzun, presents Cruising Gezi Park, an installation that refers to both Gezi Park in Istanbul and Oosterpark in Amsterdam, examining concepts such as queer cruising, visibility, safety and the regulation of public space. Van Saarloos travels between the two cities and invites Kübra Uzun, who was involved in the 2013 protests in Gezi Park, to share her memories of a park that still feels a bit queer.

The installation in the museum also brings in Amsterdam Oosterpark, where police installed lights while the municipality cut trees – and similar to Istanbul, these measures are portrayed as ‘protection’ for gay cruisers and white women. The installation’s fake grass marks the violence of gentrification, as well as celebrating the queer and drag appreciation for artificial aesthetics. The red light in the installation both refers to the colour of nationalism in Turkey and the heavily gentrified Red-Light district in Amsterdam.

Kübra Uzun will participate in the symposium at Amsterdam Museum on 10 June 2021. The symposium is titled - in honour of Paul Preciado’s essay - The Architecture of Sex, and is organised by Simon(e) van Saarloos. Together with Jeanette Chedda
(Disability Architecture), Benjamin Asante (Walk of Shame), Tracian Meikle (PhD at UvA, Public Art & Murals Jamaica and Amsterdam context), Rene Boer (Failed Architecture), Kevin Gotkin (Disability Arts Organizer, residency at Het HEM), Sophie Lewis (author of Full Surrogacy Now).

This programme is in Collaborations with the Amsterdam museum and Stichting Art1. The symposium will be live-streamed via Refresh Amsterdam.

Together with filmmaker Ömer Tevfik Erten, Kübra and Simon(e) launched the online exhibition project Through the Window in 2020. Kübra also participated in the digital programme during the Art Night Out talk in collaboration with the International Queer and Migrant Film Festival.