Istanbul Unbound: Environmental Approaches to the City, Pera Museum, April 8–11, 2021
Istanbul Research Institute and Pera Museum organize Istanbul Unbound: Environmental Approaches to the City, an international conference that seeks to offer new insights on the complex layers of Istanbul’s urban landscape, to be held in April 8-11, 2021, at the Pera Museum. It brings together innovative studies in the field of environmental history, political ecology, and critical art studies that utilize transdisciplinary methods and transcend predetermined scales and clearly delineated boundaries between the histories and stories of humans, nonhumans, and the built environment.
The conference language is English. We welcome contributions from all humanities, social sciences, architecture, and urbanism related fields.
Possible paper topics include but are not limited to:
- Earthquakes in Istanbul’s past and future
- Power and resistance in urban environmental struggles
- Istanbul in the history of epidemics and pandemics
- Mega-projects and Istanbul’s fringes
- Cemeteries, parks, and other “urban natures”
- Gendered environments of Istanbul
- Environmental justice and Istanbul
- Feeding Istanbul
- Infrastructure and environment
- Artistic responses to ecological crises and challenges
- Human–animal relations
There will be four plenary roundtables organized in collaboration with several local and international collectives and institutions:
- Connection Points (co-organized with birbuçuk: Ecology and Art Studies)
- Governing Istanbul: Scientists, Technologies, and Ecologies (co-organized with IstanbuLab: Science, Technology and Society Platform) (open call)
- Responses to Sudden Onset Events and Extreme Weather in Istanbul: Past and Present (co-organized with KTH Environmental Humanities Lab Occupy Climate Change! Project) (open call)
- Environmental Policies and Their Discontents in the 21st Century Istanbul (co-organized with Heinrich Böll Stiftung – Turkey)
The organizers closely follow the global situation created by COVID-19, and work on an accessible virtual alternative, in case the public health concerns will not permit to hold the conference in its physical form in Istanbul. The transition to the virtual conference will be decided well in advance, and in consultation with the local and international collaborators, as well as the public health experts in Istanbul.