and its reaches through reclaiming the discarded
A çekçek’s-length is a study on navigating through and learning from a waste landscape characterized by precarity and uncertainty, embedded within the city of Istanbul with everlasting networks. My thesis work unfolds this landscape through a series of encounters that I had with one of the most prominent yet overlooked professions of Istanbul: the work of waste picking. It narrates what happens when waste(d) matter continues to live by communicating with new contexts, speaking to humans and non-humans whether it is the physical remains of a past or a garbage bag; and aims to dismantle deeply rooted ways of ‘not seeing,’ within the city and learn how to cope with a damaged planet that has already become our collective home.
The title “A çekçek’s-length” plays on the phrase “an arm’s-length,” alluding to the distance and marginalization that characterize the waste pickers’ relationship with mainstream urban society.
Archive
List of figures