A Film-Set Activism: Political Dimensions of a Labor Day Performance
In: World Political Theatre and PerformanceSearch for other papers by Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ in
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Abstract
As part of local Labor Day celebrations in the Turkish city of Eskişehir, union workers utilized a desolate film-set replica of Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square to stage their protest against the ban on entering Taksim on such a resonant date. This essay explores the performance aspects of this event, held from 2013 to 2015, enquiring about the power of space to promote social and political activism by mimicking both an actual place (Taksim Square) and a fictional space of rehearsal and production (a theatre stage). Following Scott Magelssen’s theory of simming, the chapter analyses the processes of meaning-making and the emancipatory dimension of the episode, understood as an upcycled relic of capitalist cultural production. Despite the progressive nature of the event, which suggested the empowering potential to construct social places from excess cultural products, the Turkish working class rejected that novel expressive experience and returned to the former institutional celebrations.