The Debris of Memory

Keywords: Destruction, Memory, Rubble, Diyarbakir Turkey
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 15

Abstract

Near to the Tigris River, next to a Kurdish burial site, on the outskirts of the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, sits a mound of rubble that was once an entire district of a city. Contained in this mountain of memories is the demolished architectural remains of the historic city center of Surici, Diyarbakir.
In the 1990s Surici, Diyarbakir became a place of refuge for Kurdish citizens who were displaced from their villages and who began to create a communal neighborhood culture by inhabiting the old city’s traditional narrow streets and multi-family houses. In 2015-16, this historic district became the sight of a massive military operation coupled with a post-conflict demolition that saw the destruction of entire neighborhoods, once again forcibly displacing an estimated 24,000 people from their homes.
After the destruction of Surici, the rubble of the city was transported to a deserted area east of the Tigris River. With it, the urban memory was heaped into a pile of rubble, into a forgotten monument of destroyed memory. In this paper, I will analyze how this pile of rubble—the remnants of a ruined city contrived as a topographical form —is an inevitable trace of displacement and loss of cultural and urban memory. As Gaston R. Gordillo (2014) states in Rubble: The Afterlife of Destruction “…spatial constellations are made up not only of inhabited places but also of the nodes of rubble they are enmeshed with” (20). Surici is a stunning example of this intertwined relationship.