Opening of the lgbtt exhibition

First we (me and Seda, love of my life) had to go to Karakoy where the tiny alternative gallery Hafriyat is located to attend the opening of the lambda (the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual organisation of Istanbul) exhibition, then we had to attend the opening night of The Istanbul Film Festival.
This was a bit of a tricky business in terms of transportation. Interestingly Karakoy is walking distance from our house and even Lutfu Kirdar, the place where the festival was to open, can be reached on foot from our house, though admittedly, a longer walk then to the gallery. I must have mentioned in a previous entry how centrally our house is situated. However to get from Karakoy to Lutfi Kirdar in time, especially during rush hour, is another business altogether. Especially since you had to consider the fact as the festival was going to be broadcasted live on the national television, you had to be there on time or you wouldn’t be able to get in. We didn’t have a plan, we only knew we couldn’t say long at the exhibition.
We had a bit of a problem getting dressed. This is what occasionally happens with two women living together. Even if you are going to just wear jeans and shirt you might end up agitating each other and turning the whole thing into a big deal but we managed to go out in time and walked down to Karakoy.
The gallery is on a street that is jammed with traffic at that hour and because it is tiny most of the people were out on the pavement. So it was a weird picture: the exhibition people crowded on the pavement drinking from plastic cubs while commuters crowded in buses looked down on them.
Plus there was a performance happening, a part of which, was also on the pavement. The performance was by ‘Ciplak Ayaklar Kumpanyasi’, which translates as ‘Naked Feet Company’. There was one man, with literally naked feet, sitting on the pavement with a bucket on his head and a gismo that sent drops of water on the bucket. (I believe this is what is known as Chinese torture) There was a woman in the same situation right inside the gallery and one on the upper floor.
The place inside, as well as out on the pavement, was packed full with people and inside it was quite claustrophobic. In fact I believe the situation inside the bus on the street and that inside the gallery quite mirrored one another and we shared the experience of claustrophobia with the performers under their buckets. Since it was a huge problem even to move, we very soon realised, we won’t be looking at the artwork and decided not to try and that we would come back some other time for it.
Actually people were, for the most part, ignoring the performers as well as the the other works and I was reminded of some of Maria Abromovich’s performances and how she was rescued, from near death, by attentive spectators. No such luck for our performers if they happened to have any medical problems.
The first friend we saw was Inanc who directed us towards Aykan, Gencay, Cicek and Bawer. They were all eating penis shaped ginger cookies, which I believe must be some sort of edible art. Bawer introduced me to a woman saying, “this is Aykan’s mother and she is teaching us how to eat a penis”. The woman gave me a cookie and said they are quite nice; I took one saying “not that I would know”. It turned out she was indeed Aykan’s mother. Aykan is the curator of the exhibition and has one work exhibited as well, though we never got to see it.
Since it was impossible to move around and since Cicek was leaving already we didn’t stay long and joined her, thinking we might as well start our journey towards our other appointment. As we walked, we met another friend Zeynep, who was just arriving unaware of what kind of crowd awaited her at the gallery.