Wish: Aya Yorgi (2008, Istanbul-Ongoing)

An island, in the middle of the sea. In the middle of the island, a hill.

This project looks at a biannual, collective wish-making ritual in Buyukada, Istanbul. It focuses entirely on the physical traces observed on site, in their diversity, without claiming an overall documentation of the event. It hopes to explore wish-making in urban environments, as a soft, subtle strategy of creating belonging through the formation of a sense of place, and approaches Aya Yorgi as a site in which a crystallized, visible and intensified form of wish-making can be observed and experienced.

As the ritual site is temporarily transformed into an open site of wish-making by collective participation, effort and movement, it is also transformed into a place which spatially inhabits its participants' imagined futures. The hill, once a geographical space, is now a place that holds hopes, meaning and anticipation. An organic, future directed attachment to a part of the city is formed through wish-making.

This project recognizes its limitations in leaving behind the questions of who participates, who is included and who is excluded in this ritual, and most importantly how these practices are translated into a long term sense of belonging for the participants. At the same time, I still hope to bring forth this very limited observation, as a singular segment of looking at the varied strategies of belonging which are used in urban environments.

*Twice a year, thousands of visitors, most of whom are from outside the island, come to the island by ferries, to participate in a syncretic wishmaking ritual, in Aya Yorgi. They climb the highest hill of the island, towards the Church of St. George/Aya Yorgi, unrolling colorful threads along the path and around the trees. They also stack rocks, burn candles, stick coins and sugar cubes onto the walls, draw their wishes with small branches, chalk, or small rocks, tie rags on trees, and leave pendants, as well as officially making a wish inside the church. It is a loosely structured ritual which is not exclusively claimed by the church or the municipality, but shared, adopted and used by its visitors coming from very diverse backgrounds, which makes the blending of Christian, Pre-Christian/Pagan, Muslim and traditional folk practices possible, creating an almost semi-official, but highly inclusive site of wish-making possible.