Kıraathane announces 2024 spring season program
Kıraathane welcomes spring with a season in bloom with colorful, purposeful, and creative events.
28.03.2024
Kıraathane Istanbul Literature House announced the program for the upcoming spring season, which starts next week and extends to the end of June. The season’s overarching theme is creating solidarity networks for collective action, particularly in combating poverty and advocating for LGBTI+ rights. To bring these subjects into focus, Kıraathane has teamed up with the Social Policy, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association (SPoD) and the Deep Poverty Network (Derin Yoksulluk Ağı). As with every cause worth fighting for in our complex societies, both civic engagements have aspects that intersect and breed similar challenges.
Celebrating Pride Month has been virtually impossible for many years, whether through events or informal gatherings. Despite this challenging context, Kıraathane is proud to host discussions, workshops, and -for the first time!- stand-up comedy shows on every shade of queer for the next three months. Along with discussions that include deep queer dives into Turkey’s history and analyses of some of the burning issues faced by the LGBTI+ community, Kıraathane will organize readings around authors such as Ocean Vuong and writing workshops. Also, stay tuned for a surprise to mark James Baldwin’s 100th anniversary in the city he deeply cherished.
Turkey is currently experiencing one of the worst economic crises in its recent history. Poverty is taking a heavy toll on individuals, families, communities, and the whole nation. Kıraathane will open the debate on how vulnerable groups are affected by poverty and the various implications of income disparity. Discussions on poverty will also be an opportunity to explore ways society can solidarize to demand a more equitable distribution of wealth in the face of corporate interest and highly speculative real estate policies.
Speak Up’s monthly events on books considered “harmful” by the state committee to protect minors will continue throughout spring. Editors Mehmet Erkurt, Özlem Akcan, and author Karin Karakaşlı will engage the audience in reading together these -so to speak- books non grata.
Kıraathane will also host two exhibitions this season. Starting on May 3, Nalan Yırtmaç and İlhan Sayın will collaborate on the exhibition Darmadağın, or “All over the place,” which promises to present new ways of seeing. From June 14, it will be the turn of artist Rezzan Gümgüm’s my/red lines exhibition, which intends to explore the contours and the borders of what’s acceptable and what’s coded as transgression.
Kıraathane’s literary discussions and Kurdish language workshops will continue for another season. Always keep an eye on Kıraathane’s YouTube channel, where each event’s video and original content are regularly posted. Kıraathane is also posting some older YouTube videos in audio format for podcast enthusiasts, which you can access on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.