Live Performance
Shall I Tell You a Secret, Performance for Lubunya Dispatches x Screen Pratices Opening Night, ICA London
ICA LONDON 2-4 June 2023
Turkey is a unique spatial-temporal context to understand the development, and more recently the regression, of lubunya* emancipatory politics and discourse; both in localized and globalized reams. Legally, the Republic never criminalized homosexuality in the country's formative constitution, meaning that lubunya communities historically enjoyed a level of legislative sexual and gendered freedom throughout the 20th century ill-afforded to their European and North American counterparts until much later. That notwithstanding, lubunya in contemporary Turkey have been unfavourably positioned against the hegemonic politics of the Turkish state. As a result, lubunya have been increasingly subjected to extreme forms of violence and oppression in Turkey; last year alone saw a record-breaking number of arrests during Istanbul Pride march in June, and the "Big Family Gathering" that took place in September 2022, attended by 150 conservative non-governmental organizations across Turkey, calling on the government to close down all LGBTQ+ associations. This intervention, titled LUBUNYA Dispatches, aims to draw solidarity and attention to such developments in Turkey by platforming the resistance that continue to persist despite such regressions. For its iteration at the ICA, LUBUNYA Dispatches presents a film program and a series of off-events in the form of workshops and panels that construct dialogues among LGBTQI+ communities and our allies, unpacking the hierarchies and relationships of power that exist between the State and the People.
Akış Ka participated in Screen Practices: LUBUNYA Dispatches, firstly within a selection of performance videos curated by Queer Art Projects with their featured videos titled 'Jülyet's Habanera' and 'In Limbo'. Secondly, they were one of the performers at the opening party on June 2 alongside Must Kika.
Event link for the opening party: https://ica.art/lubunya-dispatches-party *Lubunya means queer in Lubunca (Turkish Queer Slang).
