startrucks 2009
The Startrucks project evolution, within the Istanbul Platform Garanti art residency context, articulates through many hierarchical knowledge targets (from a macro to a micro analysis level), all of them with reference to my personal “art as a means of reality cognition” approach.
More in detail:
1. “Alterity” analysis. Every time we meet a different culture we have to relate with this anthropological phenomenon, which as to do with “otherness”. Turkey is a UE candidate State, but which are the current social, political and economical problems interfering with the in progress negotiations? How is it possible to investigate this aspect considering people point of view and looking at it from a special point of view, like the truck passenger compartment can be, through a sea highway or through the Pan-European Corridors?
2. Istanbul as a strait that links and as a strait that divides, like an arriving, departing and a transition place. What cultural landscapes, which life experiences, emotions are connected to the act of arrive and depart in/from this city?
3. The concept of Journey to East, and travelling as a trait d’union between different cultures, what makes possible the encounter and the development of a complex network, a weave that enriches human life and artefacts. Travel is work and life of truck drivers: they spend their lives on board of their truck, travelling across Mediterranean places and islands which are more and more humanized and interactive. How to explore such a symbolic and cultural aspect of the “travel experience” universe within East and West freight transport? From a brief research among truck drivers communities, I noticed that, at present, a transport route map between Turkey and Italy and viceversa does not exist. Creating such a map through a participative approach by taking part in the travel, would allow us to track a parallel narrative, artefacts, social experience and dreams map, which would reflect the main characters universe
