Dirty Box Dirty Box

Over the past few decades, processes of globalisation and neoliberalism have crept into many cities around the world. While they have resulted in short-term profit for some, they have also wiped away the local heritage of specific places. In fact, these processes are not entirely new: in the early twentieth century, the Marxist philosopher Walter Benjamin lamented shifts in the experience of daily life in cities, such as the loss (via capital) of chaotic and mysterious urban spaces, cluttered bazaars and festering canals.

The city of Istanbul, in particular, which has long been prized both locally and abroad for its labyrinthine and mysterious urban landscape, and for its unique traditions in craft, food, architecture and labour, has experienced rapid changes in recent years. There have been many forced transfers of people, and as the city loses its individual character, centuries-old traditions and handicrafts are also vanishing.

Bilal Yilmaz’s Dirty Box (2016) documents this passing of traditions of skilled labour due to recent changes in urban life in Istanbul. The artist photographed craftsmen, including a woodturner (Aydin Usta), a metalsmith (Bekir Usta), a carpenter (Fedai Usta), and a manufacturer (Çağlayan Usta), who employ artisanal knowledge passed down by generations. These images are displayed via a mechanical ‘shadow box’, a portable wooden container that transforms into a projector and screens a map of Istanbul onto the wall, and with it the sites and practices of the varying dying crafts of the city. For Yilmaz, amid the processes of cleaning up cities for and by global capital, ‘dirt’ stands for the elusive, unexpected and chaotic aspects of cities: the historical, material debris, manual labour and crafts, or the gritty sense of specificity that is the first to go as cities are homogenised. Dirt, then, is something to be treasured and – as here – affectionately documented.