The Place of Memory and the Memory of Place, Oxford, England, 17 - 19 June 2022, pp.58-59
Cities and buildings are not merely physical settings, but they gain meaning and are remembered by people generating them as memory places in time. Memory places embody the integrity of life and physical setting, making them repositories of shared experiences, narrations and memories through generations.
This study presents an on-site exhibition "Heritage for Generations: Places and Things Connecting Generations in Ankara", which was organized for ICOMOS International Day for Monuments and Sites in 2018. The research-based exhibition encouraged Ankara’s inhabitants to share their memories and narratives to trace the memory places shared by different generations. The exhibition processes consist of,
- a pre-exhibition research to collect data through different modalities including person-to-person interviews (~150 people, aged 11-90, living in different parts of the city and from different socio-cultural classes), a national radio broadcast and social media posts,
- visualizing the pre-exhibition research data by mapping the continuities and shifts in memory places,
- exhibiting the memory places connecting generations by quoting narratives from interview records and displaying photographs from different timelines,
- installing interactive systems of mapping and storytelling for exhibition visitors to pin their memory places on the city map, to narrate their memories by the sticky notes and to post their stories in social media,
- an exhibition setting which simultaneously collected, structured and presented the data.
To this end, an approach to evoke the spatial memories and enhance the connection between inhabitants and the city is presented. This communication will raise the sense of belonging and will fill the gaps between people-place-time.