Ek-Biç Ye-İç
Permanent project (2014-…)
Istanbul Biennial/ Haro Cumbusyan
Istanbul, Turkey

Under the shadow of the Taksim Square in IstanbulEk-Biç Ye-İç is a permanent project that provides the area with a new public space. Through an indoor and outdoor landscape the project brings people together through a common draw – food. To realise the project we collaborated with Ayca Ince, an urban sociologist and the architect Sinan Logie.

Whilst Istanbul has a great food culture and lots of small ‘bostan’ or community gardens it has no structure to bring these informal groups together. With the weight of the municipality and private developers to build on these bostan’s the obvious energy of the community growers needs to be pulled together and galvanised. Ek-Bic Ye-Ic looks to utilise its central location and the reputation of Taksim Square as being the epicentre for change to act as a central pivot and bring all the different individuals, initiatives and organisations together. The space provides workshops, a space to meet, knowledge and seed exchange (a tradition in Istanbul) and to hold talks. Alongside all this the projects a restaurant that sells dishes using all the produce grown in the space and local bostan’s to make the initiative self sustainable.