What is birbuçuk?
Named after the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement. The "half" also represents the in-between space where disciplines, experiences, and voices meet.
Founded in Istanbul as an attempt to rebuild collective energy dispersed after the Gezi protests. A meeting ground was missing for artists, academics, and activists who were thinking the same questions from different positions. birbuçuk is an attempt to open that ground.
Closed roundtable discussions held at Studio-X Istanbul. 6–7 invited participants and 3 moderators per session. Personal stories first, then work, then collective discussion.
| Topic | Date | Context | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Water | 17 June 2017 | Water's right to flow, hydroelectric (HES) struggles, Istanbul's buried streams, commodification of water | |
| 02 | Biodiversity | 22 July 2017 | Ecological diversity, species loss, conservation policies | |
| 03 | Metabolism | 23 September 2017 | Urban metabolism, material cycles, production-consumption | |
| 04 | Boundaries | 7 October 2017 | Planetary boundaries, social limits, boundary crossings | |
| 05 | Climate | 2 December 2017 | Climate change, climate justice, adaptation and resistance | |
| 06 | Mining | 24 February 2018 | Mining, extractivism, soil and water pollution | |
| 07 | Gender | 28 April 2018 | Ecology and gender, ecofeminism, care labour | |
| 08 | Energy | 26 May 2018 | Energy policies, fossil dependency, energy justice | |
| 09 | Soil | 19 January 2019 | Soil health, food sovereignty, agricultural transformation |
A shift from broad ecological themes to everyday objects — each examined as a marker of socio-ecological processes. Public sessions at WORLBMON during the 16th Istanbul Biennial "Seventh Continent" theme.
| Object | Date | Context | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Water | 28 September 2019 | Water's right to flow; Istanbul's water management crisis; the Black Sea's cultural memory silenced by hydroelectric plants; the Mediterranean as microplastic soup | |
| 02 | Gasoline | 5 October 2019 | Declaring fossil fuels a criminal instrument; the incalculable cost of one litre; museum protests and artwashing; the children's climate strike in Sinop | |
| 03 | Potato | 12 October 2019 | Seed sovereignty and industrial agriculture; the potato in world history; farmer knowledge from Adapazarı to Boğatepe; thirty thousand people marching in Kaz Dağları the same day | |
| 04 | Concrete | 19 October 2019 | Asbestos traces and the body as environmental archive; Istanbul's dogs and the yellow trucks; a manifesto of ruderal plants | |
| 05 | Processor | 26 October 2019 | The planet as the great processor; 1993, a day of the internet and Tarkan; becoming Tarkan fans in climate communication; when we could be playing like children |
Boşaltım (Excretion) is birbuçuk's third programme, after Solunum (Respiration) and Sindirim (Digestion). We took our name from the 1.5 °C line; the first two programmes were spoken below it, Boşaltım will be spoken above it. Its question: can anything really be let go, or does every release only move the load onto someone else?