Exhibition: Vanishing Community, Vanishing Cultures: The Yörüks of Taurus Mountains, Turkey — Closes

The Gladys Marcus Library is temporarily closed. 

February 3–March 31, 2020

Vanishing Community, Vanishing Cultures: The Yörüks of Taurus Mountains, Turkey was inaugurated by the photographer and professor Praveen K. Chaudhry, Social Sciences, along with ethnographer Souzeina Mushtaq. Chaudhry and Mushtaq have been working on the issues of nomads and weavers in Kashmir and Tibet for more than a decade, and recently started working on Yörük community in the Taurus Mountains in Turkey. The ongoing visual ethnographic research details the impact of migration and globalization on these nomadic communities and documents their daily lives. It also puts a face to this invisible community and their vanishing culture.

The idea of a modern state birthed the notion of citizenship, which enforced the separation of legal citizens and the “others.” Historically speaking, nomadic communities did not belong to any marked territory because their lifestyle dictated them to migrate from one place to another in search of pastures. The creation of borders and the idea of belonging to a particular state created a complex identity crisis for nomadic communities, rendering them invisible in the socio-political scenario of the modern state.

With the endless information overload, the issues of nomads and the weavers get shelved. The individuals are reduced to statistics. This exhibition attempts to humanize nomads and the weavers as they negotiate their changing lifestyles in this globalized world. It invites viewers to be a part of their journey and participate in the discourses about home, belonging, and statehood.

This exhibition is co-sponsored by the Presidential Scholars Program; Gladys Marcus Library; History of Art Department; Social Sciences Department; Global Fashion Management Program; School of Graduate Studies; and School of Liberal Arts. Vanishing Community, Vanishing Cultures was also on view at Museo de La Ciudad de Cuernavaca (MuCIC) September 2–30, 2019, where it was sponsored by Centro Morelense de las Artes del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico.