‘Magical Nature of Diasporic Spaces’ looks at Turkish diasporic spaces in the Netherlands. Guzel’s own journeys to Turkish districts in four different cities in the Netherlands are a basis for the project, which revolves around a psycho-geographic approach. The project hinges on two focal questions: How can the materiality of physical space allow someone to access an imaginary space?  How can one read and interpret the magical nature of diasporic spaces?

Guzel confronts specific Turkish businesses such as barber shops and döner shops and bakery examining how they inhabit buildings in Dutch neighborhoods and analysing the resulting unique, diasporic spatial architecture. Guzel reads these diasporic spaces as juxtaposing several polarities, which transform each other and ultimately create an ambiguous hybrid form. In unpacking this phenomenon he proposes that these are magical diasporic spaces that are constantly morphing. Consisting of three wooden structures that are informed by the storefront facades on Turkish diasporic streets, the installation celebrates the cohabitation of ‘home and away, exterior and interior, transparency and opacity, and past and now’. The facades act as broken doorsteps to a daydream, a sense of being in multiple places at once. 

The work employs a queering methodology in order to manipulate the familiarity of barber shops and döner shops and to present these spaces in unconventional configurations and scales. Ultimately, the goal is to challenge the audience’s navigation and bodily experience to reveal and enrich the queer potential of diasporic spaces.

Text by Ben Shai van der Wal