The Aesthetics of Protest: Visual Culture and Communication in Turkey

Recent years have seen a large increase in the number of protests around the world which have challenged economic institutions and political practices, including the Arab Spring, Occupy movements, pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong, and anti-austerity movements across Europe. This project focuses on the recent protests in Turkey, particularly in Gezi Park in Istanbul. This project examines the aesthetics of protest, in particular, how protestors use social media to communicate their messages to the public and how they attempt to engage the public, politicians and fellow protestors. Protestors have a range of options open to them in order to have their voice heard and increasingly protestors use aesthetics in order to communicate their ideas. This project looks at protest aesthetics, which we consider to be the visual, material, textual and performative elements of protest, such as images, symbols, graffiti, clothes, art, but also to include other elements such as forms of rhetoric, slang, humour, slogans, as well as the choreography of protest actions in public spaces. Through the use of social media, protestors have been able to create an alternative space for people to engage with politics that is more inclusive and participatory than traditional politics. The use of social media allows people to share ideas on protest activity and deliberate with one another in an online environment. What was significant about the protests in Turkey was how images were shared across social media platforms in order to communicate the messages of the protestors, to unite the public and to challenge the unpopular policies of the government which had provoked the protests in the first place. The project will explore how the public and politicians in Turkey interpreted protest aesthetics and if they attached any significance to particular protest aesthetics, and whether these have changed since 2013, particularly in light of the electoral defeat of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the national elections in June 2015.

The recent protests in Turkey are notable because protestors inhabited public spaces in urban areas and used public spaces to communicate their ideas, emotions, and interests to the public in order to foster support and raise political awareness of issues. However, the power of the protestors was strengthened by social media platforms where members of the public, who were sympathetic with the protestors or lived in a different part of the country or beyond, did not have to occupy the same physical public space, but could engage and deliberate with one another through social networking sites and blogs. Social media platforms are increasingly an interactive space which form part of the political world where people can engage with one another and potentially become powerful. Drawing on McGarry's research on marginalised voices in politics and his work on identities and social movements, this research will provide new insights into how protestors come together and make the choices they do.

The research will benefit diverse groups including: activists/protestors; Studio X gallery; V&A Museum; individuals in the creative arts; the media; policy audiences; the wider public. Activists and protestors will benefit from the project by inputting into the design of the research project including helping to formulate research questions and objectives as well as identifying areas of research which are meaningful to activists. The project's activist reference group has already specified that they are keen to understand how the political aesthetics resonate with the public which we will uncover through the survey and want to comprehend why protestors deploy particular aesthetics and how. Activists and protestors will benefit from the increased attention on Gezi Park protests and benefit from insights into how protest aesthetics are communicated across social media platforms. The website has the potential to act as a resource for teaching and learning about the protests which activists can use to promote their ideas. Studio X gallery will benefit from a high profile exhibition being held in their exhibition space focused on a key event in contemporary Turkish history. The curator of the exhibition at Studio X will build an international profile for his work. V&A Museum will benefit by hosting a seminar to discuss the findings of the project which will feed into the V&A design and protest series providing an international dimension to its work and will benefit the museum-attending public interested in the role of art in protests. The project will benefit curators and artists around the world by contributing to the digital galleries commission and exposing them to a wider audience including to activists and academics which will generate debate concerning the role of creative arts in protest including how protest aesthetics can capture and communicate the meaning of protests around the world. The media will benefit from covering the exhibition. We will issue press releases and invite key news media and current affairs reporters and cultural critics to a press preview to generate interest in the exhibition and simultaneously generate interest in different media outlets. Policy audiences will benefit from the website, blog and research updates which will document and inform visual aesthetics from protest aesthetics from around the world. The wider public will benefit from attending the exhibition in order to understand better how protestors shaped the Gezi Park mobilisation and why particular protest aesthetics were deployed. The website will also act as a learning resource for the public to understand diverse facets of the Gezi Park protests as well as generate understandings of protests around the world.