(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
Ani, as a historical site, has been contested and defined by politically motivated restrictions for centuries. Situated on the Turkish and Armenian border, for the past 100 years it has been under the control of the sovereign state of Turkey. In 2020, however, a 3D scan of The Church of the Redeemer in Ani was made public access through the World Monuments Fund, allowing an audience of distant viewers a 360-degree view of the building. This research examines how this spectacle, allowing for re-imagined perspectives, can be viewed within the context of a long history of the image of Ani, and how technology and spatial constraints in representation have been used as a tool to shape the site’s narrative. It further explores the site’s significance for the Armenian people, including those located in Armenia and Turkey, and the wider diaspora spread across various geographies. We draw on examples such as the stereoscopic imagery taken by Onnes Kurkdjian in the 19th century, photographs taken at Ani by Ara Güler in the 1960s, and restrictions on-site up until 2003, which stated that you must not turn your camera towards the Armenian Republic. We think that imagery from within the site has taken on heightened meaning, a connection to the land and a means of active documentation. We claim that controlled perspectives have and continue to be used as tools of power and subversion. At the time of research, discussions between Turkey and Armenia, regarding the possibility of reopening the border and establishing diplomatic ties, have been renewed. Speculatively, the article therefore also considers how increased freedom of movement between the two countries might further distort, re-expose, or bring into focus the perceived image of the site.
Ela Gök is a student in the MSc program in Architectural and Urban Studies at KHU based in Istanbul. She completed her undergraduate degree, from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, in 2018. Her work explores the use of visual recordings (3D scanning, modelling and drawing) as tools for the translation of complex relationships involving identity, displacement, and place. Alongside these interests, she has experience working in analogue and digital fabrication, having previously worked as a part of Bmade, the Bartlett Manufacture and Design Exchange at UCL. In 2018 she worked as part of a small team organising the ‘Infrastructures of Care’ conference at UCL, and assisted in the curation of the accompanying exhibition.
Dr. Ezgi Tuncer is an associate professor at Kadir Has University (KHU) in Istanbul and a visiting fellow at the Gender, Justice and Security UKRI GCRF Hub based at LSE and a co-investigator of its Gendered Dynamics of Labour Migration within the Migration and Displacement Stream. She is the director of the MSc program in Architectural and Urban Studies at KHU and teaches socio-spatial theories and space, politics and power. She is engaged in research on migration and displacement; border studies and political philosophy; contemporary art, power and space; and continues to write the essay series ‘Food, City and Everyday Life’ for the e-magazine Manifold.