Bilal Yılmaz: Serial Craft

In Bilal Yılmaz’s Serial Craft, created for Yanköşe, the artist highlights how the industrial production and socio-economic policies have caused the disappearance of craftmanship, with reference to the effects of the production at Tophane-Kabataş region of Istanbul during the Republican era. The kinetic installation consists of pulleys and belts, the fundamental elements of serial production. Inspired by the area’s past and present, on the one hand it underlines the relationship between craftsmanship and production, on the other hand it evokes thinking on the current state of crafts and on their economic and cultural potential for the creative industries - not only through the installation itself, but also through the way it was produced, through the collaboration with craft studios around the city.

Traces of adaptation and transformation of craftsmanship to industrialized production can be found in many workshops in Istanbul. The pieces of old pulley and belt systems could be seen on the ceilings of some studios that transmit the central rotational movement. As electricity became widespread at the beginning of the 20th century in Istanbul, production techniques began to change. Systems that transfer the central rotational force provided by a single electric motor enabling the operation of multiple assembly stations through pulleys and belts have been established in craft studios due to the billing of electricity consumption according to the quantity of electrical equipment held, amount of power used, and the expensive prices of electrical engines.

In Turkey, where industrialization began quite late compared to western countries, craftsmanship throughout the 20th century developed semi-industrial systems to meet the production demand and created the experiences cementing the foundations of today’s industry. With the progress of industrialization, the past role of craftsmanship and its economic and cultural potential were ignored. Today, craftsmanship is romanticized by being reduced to an outdated cultural value; it is disappearing due to multi-layered problems and pressures caused by gentrification, urban transformation, population exchange, socio-economic policies and industrial production. Serial Craft allows the audience to follow the movements of the pulleys and invites the audience to think about the craftsmanship institution.

About Bilal Yılmaz
Bilal Yılmaz (Soma, Turkey, 1986) is an interdisciplinary artist-designer based in Istanbul. He mainly uses light, sound, movement and interaction to create sculptural objects, installations and experiences that shift the spectator’s perception and bring joy of collectivity. Alongside his interdisciplinary art works and designs, he works on social and collective projects, which mostly focus on the notation of production, as an agency that unites and activates people to engage with their environment and question the way of things.

Bilal Yılmaz studied Information Systems Engineering at Boğaziçi University (Istanbul) and Computer Science at Binghamton University (New York), and he received an MA in Industrial Product Design from Istanbul Technical University. His interdisciplinary interests and education are reflected on his work, which oscillates between art, design and social engagement. His practice is largely based on finding and uncovering the potentials that are hidden because of the contemporary social, political and financial reality, as well as on experiential and collaborative learning and making. A lot of what he does aims at creating tools that activate possibilities and communities through imagining and experimenting with alternative systems of engagement and collective production.

Bilal Yılmaz has participated in the Istanbul Biennial (2017) and the Istanbul Design Biennial (2014). He has also exhibited in international festivals, museums and galleries. He is regularly invited to give talks and workshops on different aspects of his work in Istanbul and abroad.

About Yanköşe
Yanköşe is a nonprofit platform for art in the public domain, realized by Kahve Dünyası, Turkey’s largest coffee chain. It provides a space of 260 square meters of walls for two invited artists every year to showcase their experimental contemporary artworks. A selection committee of five people assesses the artists’ projects. A magazine-size publication accompanies the exhibitions.