64.000: TUNCA

 

The first version of Anthropometry Survey of Turkey, which was carried out as a doctorate thesis by Afet inan in 1937, Turkey, was published in a book form at the same year as the 151st publication of the General Directorate. These two editions of the book, which the artist acquired thanks to his special interest in ephemera, constitute the foundation of this project. Carried out by a specially trained team in the country divided into ten regions, the survey includes the statistical recordings such as skull sizes, nose sizes, eye colors, heights and weights of 64.000 people. That the devices used to take measurements according to the provinces, regions, gender, and age group, were specially bought from Germany, keeps giving hints about the importance of the study for the period. TUNCA will transfer the tables containing statistical data of 200 pages to the gallery walls as a result of the performance that will take days. Whereas he refers to the fact that charcoal, which has an important place in his practice, is simply a piece of carbon, remnant; he also turns the process of writing into a living documentary.

 

The artist who discusses the methods and tendencies providing a basis for the nationalist ideology in this geography with his exhibition/performance titled “64.000”, also reveals the traces of the effort made through physical-anthropological perception of the period. TUNCA, deconstructing a social scientific both in a formal and an intellectual way, leaves analyzing the subject under the light of historical memory, to the spectators. The project which feature the survey data and will be open to visit in form of an exhibition, will be completed with a launching presenting a replica version of the book dated 1937 and an interview.

 

 

 

In 1937, the young Turkish Republic made an unprecedented effort by using every means available on the Republic's founder Atatürk’s order. The country was divided into ten regions; including women and men carefully picked from each region, a total of 64.000 people were measured in accordance with 27 anthropometric qualifications, which were determined by Afet İnan, adopted child of the great leader. As a result, the citizens were registered according to particular characteristics such as head and nose shape, and colors of hair, eyes, and skin, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. All these efforts were made to provide the necessary anthropological data for Afet Inan’s thesis titled “Anadolu, Türk “Irkı”nın Yurdu” (Anatolia, Homeland of the Turkish Race). Atatürk, with this thesis, hoped to prove that the origins of the Turkish Race dates back before the Ottoman period, the prehistoric era. Afet İnan, on the other hand, discusses in the preface of the thesis that the Turkish do not belong to the yellow race as many Westerns claim; instead, that they come from the Alpine branch of the white race, similar to the Westerns. Between the two world wars, during the period when racism increased all around the world, Turkey tried to strengthen its place in civilization history by means of physical anthropology, popular science of the period. However, that those defending physical anthropology were defeated in the World War II and this area of research lost its reputation in the post-war period, the studies of Afet İnan were forgotten. Even Inan never mentioned her thesis when she wrote her memories; however, the mindset of the state, which is based upon these foundations, kept maintaining its power.

 

TUNCA embarks on writing the content of a booklet, including the results of “Anthropometry Survey of Turkey” and acquired by the artist from an auction, on the gallery walls with a charcoal pencil page by page for his performance titled “64.000”, which takes place at Merdiven Art Space. TUNCA, who has used charcoal to reveal the cruelty of civilizations history within the limits of possibilities of representation, uses the same material in his work “64.000” to return their bodies, even for a short time, to the people who were left bodiless by the government and whose existences were degraded into abstract figures. Whereas TUNCA transfers the numbers and letters from the survey to the walls in a ritualistic way with a charcoal pencil, he reverses this gesture from the time when the survey was first made. He reunites the data alienated from life with life by means of his body. This body, which is ignored, made invisible and whose potential is degraded into the potential of the mind by the mind of the state, returns as a body of an artist this time and takes its place in the history.

 

“64.000” is a work that both examines the dark period between two great wars in world history and reveals the structure of the operations that constructed the Republic of Turkey. While doing so he not only refers to a historical event but also makes the mechanisms that caused this historical moment visible and analyzes the structure of a modern nation. He problematizes the close relationship between the state, people, representation, life, and death. The time TUNCA spends at the gallery is an attempt to pay a price to daily life for ignoring it while running after the idea of great humanity and to the unmeasurable and unstoppable time of a singular body for hindering it to construct imaginary communities. It is a gift, in a way. The existence, which is only a few words according to the government, is intentioned to regain its singularity and the plurality it conserves by means of tools provided by the art.