Other Monuments
2023 – Continues
othermonuments.com
The “Other Monuments” project is an interactive podcats and walking route in the city, created with the contribution of marginalized groups and individuals in the Marzahn district. The event will start with group tours on 28-29 January and the route will be experienced for 1 month in the Berlin city. The project was initiated by Diren Demir with the support of the Berlin Mondiale.
Other Monuments project offers interactive walking routes where the city memory and history are brought to light. The routes spread throughout the Marzhan/Mitte region are based on historical stories as well as the personal memories of the disabled, displaced, exiled and immigrant people living in the neighbourhood. The project, which creates “personal monuments” by bringing the city memories of immigrants into public spaces, archives and protects the valuable stories of how the city and the region is experienced by marginalised individuals. The content and location of these memories determines the direction of the walking path.
Emphasizing belonging and renewing the immigrant’s bond with the city by creating a personal monument to everyone, the project aims to create an archive of memories. Offering the opportunity to experience the Marzahn-Mitte through the eyes of the unprivileged individuals living in the region, the project provides a temporary monument in the city for not only to historical figures, but also to everyone who sees Berlin as their home.
Photo: ©Jacopo La Forgia for Berlin Mondiale.
Art Space Project
2016 – Continues
artspaceproject.blog
Art Space Project is a guerrilla exhibition concept that started on the road and will always continue on the road. The project travels from city to city and invites everyone who passes by to draw, dance, sing, make music. The project exhibits pictures drawn in previous cities and acquires new pictures in each city it goes to; In this respect, it is an interactive exhibition and memory archive that is constantly growing.
The Art Space Project was established by traveler Diren Demir for the first time on 20 September 2016 in the village of Çukurardıç in Fethiye. Since the first art field established in 2016; More than 30 art fields have been established in many parts of the world in cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, Akyaka, Antalya, Sazak, Cappadocia, Kayseri, Eskişehir, India (Dharamshala, Grahan Vilage, Komic Village) Germany (Kleve) Netherlands (Amsterdam), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mostar)…
The main mission of the Art Space Project is the accessibility of art. Eexhibition spaces is chosen especially as rural “village” regions where the access of art is limited or “streets” where everyone can interact in their daily routine.
In Art Space Project, which eliminates all kinds of value hierarchy of art production and set out with the belief that “everyone has an artist inside”, the work of a 3-year-old child and the work of a 50-year-old artist can exist side by side and create the same strong effect. Diren has named this concept, which the Art Space Project can go beyond the uniform corporate galleries in terms of mission and vision, as “guerrilla curatorship“.
Diren Demir 