They Just Left

They Just Left builds on a two-year creative development that took place between 2021 - 2023 with French Dance Company Ex Nihilo, Hungarian PLACCC Festival Director Fani Nany, Eastern Turkey's Gazişehir Theatre Festival, Australian sound designer Kirri Buchler and numerous Turkish artists.

This work engages with the habit of occupiers to erase histories and identities that diverge from their notion of self. After a land, a city, or a home is taken, if the occupier is asked 'where did the people that used to live here go' the reply is: 'They Just Left'.

In September 2023, Görkem directed a site-specific immersive creative development in the old Armenian quarters of Gaziantep (Bey Mahallesi), engaging poetically with contemporary amnesia, denial and ignorance of the areas' previous inhabitants.

Following the development, Görkem arrived back in Australia on October 7, 2023. Since that day, bearing witness to everything that has unfolded, made it impossible to continue to explore themes of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The work has now been reconceived as an intimate exploration of erasure, taking contemporary and historical acts into account including, the attempted erasure of Australia's first inhabitants' culture, knowledge and way of life, by the British who occupied that land.

Below are images from the first creative development in Gaziantep, Eastern Turkey.

LOCATION: Bey Mahallesi
Bey Mahallesi is one of four quarters in the old part of Turkey's Eastern city, Gaziantep. Known colloquially as 'The Armenian quarter' this beautiful neighborhood has tree lined cobbled streets and huge old houses now occupied by Turkish families.

PLACCC Festival Director
Anne Le Batard introduced Görkem to Fani Nany, Director of Hungarian PLACCC International Festival of Site-specific Art and Art in Public Space. Fani also participated in the development in Gaziantep

Assistant Director
Görkem worked with Sadettin Yalta as Assistant Director.

Ex Nihilo
Görkem met Anna Le Batard and Jean-Antione Bigot at an IETM, and later visited them during a project development in East Germany. She invited Ex Nihilo to collaborate on the development in Gaziantep. Here they watch actors creating intimate dance works in the streets of Bey Mahallesi.

Sound Designer Kirri Büchler
Görkem invited her collaborator, Australian sound designer, Kirri Büchler to also participate in the creative development.

Görkem and Kirri walking in old city.JPG

Creative Development
The team worked with local actors to explore the site working in an old Armenian mansion and the streets of Bey Mahellesi with frequent meetings and development of performance pieces.

The creative team worked with local actors, musicians and writers to develop performance scenes that explored themes of denial, memory, erasure, absence/submerged presence, unseeing and unhearing, the present haunted by an accumulated past.

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They Just Left

LOCATION: Bey Mahallesi Bey Mahallesi is one of four quarters in the old part of Turkey's Eastern city, Gaziantep. Known colloquially as 'The Armenian quarter' this beautiful neighborhood has tree lined cobbled streets and huge old houses now occupied by Turkish families.

PLACCC Festival Director Anne Le Batard introduced Görkem to Fani Nany, Director of Hungarian PLACCC International Festival of Site-specific Art and Art in Public Space. Fani also participated in the development in Gaziantep

Assistant Director Görkem worked with Sadettin Yalta as Assistant Director.

Ex Nihilo Görkem met Anna Le Batard and Jean-Antione Bigot at an IETM, and later visited them during a project development in East Germany. She invited Ex Nihilo to collaborate on the development in Gaziantep. Here they watch actors creating intimate dance works in the streets of Bey Mahallesi.