24/11/2015
The Sabancı University Gender and Women's Studies Forum held a symposium titled "International Gender and Esthetics: Art, Film and Literature" from November 6 to November 8, 2015.
The symposium at the Karaköy Minerva Palas began with introductory remarks by Banu Karaca. Banu Karaca spoke on “War, Gender and Visual Literacy." Karaca said that war was not a distant possibility in Turkey, and that while a war raged in the Middle East, Turkey was living in its own brand of war with news of death arriving on a daily basis.
Banu Karaca continued, “If we are not in a warzone itself, we witness war by the caskets that arrive. We are living proof of the argument that history consists of images. Rocking back and forth between extreme value or stark disregard attributed to images has always been under criticism. One such criticism has to do with the limits of visuality."
Karaca explained that some studied how images of war were being produced and consumed, and argued that the limits of war images had to be enforced.
Banu Karaca said, “Angela Davis says that such images are extremely complex and it is unimaginable that an image represents unadulterated truth. Davis argues that all images are created and viewed in a given economy. She has said that lack of visual literacy works for torture and sexual abuse. Failing to establish a frame and imposing limits on this perception will cause issues. It will lead to people not seeing what they don't wish to see."
Karaca also referred to Susan Sontag, specifically: "There is no war without photography. Consequently, there is no war without cameras and rifles. Technological advances spread war. All photographs are examples of this, from the American Civil War to the satellite images ot today." Karaca said that a similar trend was observed in violence against gender, arguing that the advancement of technology could serve to spread state violence. Karaca continued, “Nevertheless, one is the representation of war, and the other is a war on how war will be represented. These two wars are interlocked."
"The consequence of wars is social and political chaos with gender at the center."
Banu Karaca discussed the victimization of women when visualizing war and said that women were not outside of mobilization when in a hostile environment. Explaining that women took their places in battlefields and factories for the length of the war, continuing, "As soon as war is over, they are isolated from social life. Their experience is silenced and made invisible. They are never seen as warriors; they are depicted as wives and mothers."
Karaca said that in Western performing arts, the man was center stage and women only existed around them as images, and argued that the visibility of women was used to legitimize war. Karaca continued, "It is considered warmongering when young and beautiful women were portrayed in military uniforms just prior to the onset of war in Croatia. This is a call for the protection of women. Gender-based violence occurs in every war. Women warriors are always the part of the same eventuality. The use of women as symbols for power is time-sensitive. The outcome that awaits them is self-sacrifice."
Banu Karaca argued that the consequence of wars was social and political chaos with gender at the center, mentioning the rise of issues related to masculinity as well.
Karaca said that the "war on terror" started a war on images, continuing, "There were restrictions on the imagery of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Caskets coming back home were almost never shown. This is because such visuals had been used extensively by anti-war activists in the aftermath of Vietnam. War is the most irresistible type of imagery, both today and in the past."
Karaca argued that anti-war documentaries too were unable to leave the war genre behind, concluding "Visual literacy has to do with what visual representation is capable of doing. Creating images must be subject to some rules of engagement. One must avoid images that are too vivid."
"Sisterhood is at the heart of storytelling."
The closing lecture of the symposium was given by Feride Çiçekoğlu from Bilgi University. Çiçekoğlu's lecture was titled “Five Sisters and No Mr. Darcy" and discussed three works of literature and cinema telling the stories of five sisters.
Feride Çiçekoğlu said that sisterhood was at the heart of storytelling and that reality was an area which remained mostly vacant until Jane Austen decided to change things. She said that the two important issues in the beginning of a narrative were identity of the lead character and through whose perspective the story is told.
Çiçekoğlu said that the plot in Austen’s "Pride and Prejudice" was used in numerous Hollywood productions, and went on to discuss how the issue was handled differently in the book and in films, continuing "In the film, the lead character Elisabeth is revealed in the first scene and the story is told from her perspective."
Feride Çiçekoğlu then discussed the book "The Virgin Suicides" and its film adaptation. The story is about the five daughters of the Lisbon family, and although the story is being told by a group of young men 25 years after the incidents, the lead characters are the girls. Feride Çiçekoğlu commented, “From the beginning, there is confusion about who the protagonist of the story is. Whose is this story, and who is telling? If the story is told through someone else's perspective, how do we know that the protagonists have been wronged? Why don't we hear the voices of the protagonists?"
Finally, Feride Çiçekoğlu discussed the film “Mustang.” Çiçekoğlu noted the fact that the film tells the story of five sisters and has no male subjects. Çiçekoğlu also mentioned that director Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s first film was aptly titled. Commenting on the film, Çiçekoğlu said, "The director is passionate about women becoming subjects that act, instead of being acted upon. The women here both want to survive and to be free."
Panel sessions during the symposium discussed the perception of gender, women and men across a wide range from cinema to plastic arts.
Symposium sessions were titled “The Philosophy of Feminist Knowledge”, “Gender and the Fiction of Nations”, “Masculinity in Literature”, “Gender and Sexuality on the Axes of Class and Genre”, “The Esthetics of Passion”, “Voices of Women in Literature” and “Re-Producing Gender.”
Panelists included distinguished academics and artists from Turkey and abroad.
