Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
İngiliz Konseyi, 2023 - 2024
SUPPLIANTS OF SYRIA is an innovative digital project that operates across cultures, reaching new audiences in both Türkiye and the UK, including both refugees and people who feel threatened by migration. It combines the theatricality of our UK partner’s artistic approach with the immediacy of the digital documentary format.
The starting point will be 'SUPPLIANTS' by Aeschylus, the second oldest extant play, addressing women fleeing Syria and containing the first use of the word 'democracy.' Like Greek theatre-makers, collaboration will be undertaken with a community Chorus. In contrast to the Greeks, these will be real Syrian women currently confined in Türkiye. Our UK partners will travel to Adana to collaborate in the development of creative work with Syrian refugee groups.
The participants in Çukurova University Communication Faculty’s studio and on local locations will be filmed performing the Choruses from Aeschylus, as well as their own testimonies, reflections, and aspirations in relation to their current situation. Examples of dramatic scenes, such as representations of auditions or interviews through which participants joined the project, will be set alongside interviews they had to undertake to establish refugee status.
Parallels between the representation of refugees (both by the media and within our own project) and the obligation they constantly face to perform their identities will be central to the creative process. This dramatic material will be set alongside interviews from the UK, where a range of responses to the work will be assembled by our partners. Interview subjects may include refugees who have settled there, staff of agencies working with them, political figures, and the general public.
The aim of the project is for new ground to be broken in the interplay between theatrical performance, documentary, and the practice of democracy. This was what Greek theatre did, and it is what can be achieved today through an international and cross-disciplinary collaboration.