Colors of the Gray City
BY CANSU ORANÇ (PSYC/IV)
oranc@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
For me, everything began when I came to Ankara in 2006 for college. I was exploring the city with friends. I was told that Ankara was the"gray" city of the office holders. For all that, I was still hopeful about the city as I was meeting great people and discovering nice places. As time went by walking the streets, I began to see some colorful graphic pictures and writings on apartment blocks, kiosques, electricity boxes, walkways, and bus shelters. Some of them were witty scripts and some were humorous drawings, mostly in color. The common point of all was that they weren't hand-written or hand-drawn but were made with a template. I later learned that they were called stencils. Day by day I began to see more and after a while, I began to take pictures of each one I saw. After five years, I now have a collection of tens of stencil photos in cities I've visited, mostly from Ankara. It's exciting to see that I have photos of stencils from kiosques or electricity boxes that no longer exist. In a way, I own a different history of the city. I later broadened my collection with photos of funny stickers on traffic signs and subtle hand written comments on billboards. You can't believe how creative people can be! Here some other examples.
Have you come up to the colorful "Cow Parade" cows in İstanbul in 2007 or in İzmir in 2010? They were designed by different artists and were all around the city. It was funny running into big colorful cows turning a corner. In İzmir, I remember people found those cows rambling in the city quite strange. They couldn't get the point of them. After a while, however, I remember people talking about how funny or cute they were. People were taking photos with them and some had their "favorites." Turning back to Ankara, a group of people called themselves the KUF Project really amuses me. Have you ever hung up a urinal on one of the busiest underpasses of the city? Well, some people did on the Kuğulu underpass few weeks ago. They also attached a note along, which unfortunately makes no sense when translated in English. They previously changed "Gazi Osman Paşa" sign to "Tosun Paşa" and painted some bollards to look like Pacman and the ghosts.
Stencils, stickers or graffiti. No matter what, I love seeing things that do not actually belong. A contractor of an apartment block in Ankara obviously wasn't planning to make a stencil on the gateaway saying that "70% of the human body is Coca-Cola"! It doesn't necessarily have to be sarcastic or political, it's enough if it makes you smile. A few years ago, I was seeing pixelated pink hearts all around and they were making me feel good!
The point of all these is that they make you look around and not just at the toe of your shoes! When I was chasing the stencils, I was paying more attention to everything around me. All these, they make you smile, or think. This is how they remind you that you're a human. As you see such things, you begin to be more aware of the city you live in. All these little things make the city yours. This is how I feel, at least.
Have you noticed the flying birds that came from a pipe played by a kid on Eskişehir Road? If you haven't, pay more attention to the walls on your right when coming to Bilkent next time. They're right after passing the two malls. They're my answer to whoever calls Ankara the "gray city."