1 Ekim Pazar akşamı saat 19:30'da gerçekleşecek olan Mahsul Buluşmaları'nın beşincisinde Dr. Seçil Binboğa’yı konuk edeceğiz.

Binboğa’nın aktarımıyla, ‘’Türkiye Cumhuriyeti İktisat Vekâleti zirai eğitim çalışmalarında kullanılmak üzere 1930 yılında Mısır’dan “POJ 105” kodlu şekerkamışı tohumları ithal etti. Tohumlar Adana Ziraat Mektebi’nin deneme tarlalarında bir yıl boyunca tecrübe edildi. Bu deneyden geriye Çukurova peyzajında yalnızca yeni bir şekerkamışı türü değil, yeni bir doğa imajı da kaldı. O imajın 1930’lardan 1950’lere uzanan macerasının izini arşiv belgeleri aracılığıyla süren bu konuşma, küresel ölçekte şekillenen deneysel doğanın Akdeniz havzasındaki yansımalarına bir bakış açısı sunmayı hedefliyor.’’

Seçil Binboğa works on transnational histories of infrastructures and resource extraction with a focus on Turkey and the Middle East. Her book project, “Scaling the Region: Visuality, Infrastructure, and the Politics of Design in Cold War Turkey” traces the political, discursive, and cultural regimes that were reconstituted by U.S.-sponsored infrastructural design practices and objects, such as soil maps, multi-purpose dams, urban engineering plans, and port development programs. Through archival research into representational forms and visual media in Turkey and the U.S., she examines how infrastructural investments reconstructed “the regional scale” as an environmental object of rule.

On Thursday, July 27th at 19:30, we will host architect Aslıhan Demirtaş for the fourth edition of the Mahsul Gatherings.

With Aslıhan's words, "How you define 'garden' defines how you are a 'gardener'. In this sentence, the garden can be replaced by the world, nature, city; the gardener can be replaced by an architect, engineer or farmer. Our imaginations of the world directly affect our ways of doing within it. While establishing the relationship between architecture, graft and crops in this way, I will revisit the Graft project in the garden of 'Mahsul'. Our key words and names: houseboats, Süleyman Demirel and DSI, mosses, Goethe, Seyhan Dam and Halet Çambel.''

Aslıhan Demirtaş, is an architect and researcher and cofounder of KHORA Office. Prior to establishing her own practice, she collaborated with Pritzker Laureate I.M. Pei for nearly a decade as the chief designer for Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar and the Miho Chapel in Kyoto, Japan. Aslıhan served as a technical reviewer for the 2020-2022 Aga Khan Architecture Awards. She is an active member of the Initiative for the Protection of the Historical Yedikule Urban Gardens.  Graft, a research project begun in 1999, which we will hear a lot about at the 4th event of Mahsul Meetings, is currently preparing for its next step as an e-book at SALT as a recipent of Graham Foundation grant. You can find information about the exhibition, research and database at Graftonline.

In the third edition of Mahsul Gatherings, taking place on the evening of June 20th, Tuesday, at 19:30, we will host Dr. A. Hilal Horzumlu. Based on her doctoral research on the Sarıkeçililer community and her experience living a nomadic life between 2009 and 2011, Horzumlu will discuss the connections between nomadic life practices and nature in the Mediterranean. These connections present a unique bond with nature and the environment, surpassing our usual understanding. Understanding nomadic life practices provides a significant resource, particularly in the context of climate and ecological struggles. During the event, we will explore how nomadic life practices in the Mediterranean and its surrounding regions, some of which have transformed into intensive industrial farming areas, have maintained their ties from the past to the present. We will also hear from Horzumlu about the conditions under which nomadism can be sustained today.

Dr. Ayşe Hilal Tuztaş Horzumlu studied History and Social Anthropology at Istanbul University. She completed her doctoral research titled "Settling, Moving, and Living: Space and Narrative in Sarıkeçili" at Yeditepe University's Institute of Social Sciences. Horzumlu, who is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at Yeditepe University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, teaches courses and conducts research on nomadism, visual anthropology, rural areas, performance, and sensory anthropology.

On May 20, Saturday at 6:00 p.m., the second guest of the Mahsul Meetings will be Prof. Dr İbrahim Ortaş. Ortaş, who has been conducting academic and practical studies in Çukurova for many years, will share his observations and experiences on the future of agricultural production and food. We will discuss the relationship between agriculture and the environment, changing farming practices, and the crops of the high-yield-oriented industrial agriculture practised intensively today in Çukurova.

İbrahim Ortaş: Born in 1960. In 1985, he graduated from Çukurova University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Soil Science. In the same year, he started to work as a researcher at Şanlıurfa Village Services Research Institute. In 1986, he worked as a responsible manager in an agricultural company in Ceyhan-Adana. He worked as a research assistant at Ç.Ü. Faculty of Agriculture, Soil Department and as a researcher at Hohenheim University in Germany. He received his doctorate education at the University of Reading in England. In 2002, he received the title of Professor and he is still working as a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, Ç.Ü.

On May 20, Saturday evening at 18:00, Sedat Gündoğdu will be the first guest of the Mahsul Meetings. The conversation with Gündoğdu, who has been conducting his scientific studies on Çukurova for many years, will focus on plastic waste in the plain as a neglected crop of industrial agriculture and related industrial productions. We will talk about the traces left by plastic from the environment to the table, plastic landscapes and the journey of plastic as a raw material.

Assoc. Prof. Sedat Gündoğdu works on marine biology at Çukurova University, Faculty of Fisheries. Gündoğdu has numerous studies on the sources of microplastics entering the aquatic environment, their distribution in the aquatic environment, their effects on living organisms and their transfer to the food chain. Dr Gündoğdu, who also provides training on waste management and waste reduction to prevent plastic pollution, has so far conducted studies on microplastic pollution in foods such as table salts, mussels, fish for consumption and fish feeds. He has also been involved in studies on microplastics released from wastewater and distributed on the sea surface and sediment. She is currently researching the sources and distribution of plastic pollution in various ecosystems and the effects of the plastic garbage trade on the ecosystem.