As part of the Public Program of the exhibition Why Look at Animals? – Justice for Nonhuman Life, the EMST presents a lecture by Mine Yildirim entitled Between Care and Violence: The Dogs of Istanbul on Thursday, January 29, at 7:00 p.m.

Mine Yildirim chronicles the history of stray dogs in Istanbul from 1910 to the present day, drawing on research conducted as part of her doctoral thesis, which examines the emotional and political landscapes that shape the fate of the city’s stray dogs. Starting with an incident in 1910, when 80,000 stray dogs were taken to the small island of Oksia (one of the smallest in the Pringiponissa complex in the Gulf of Marmara) and abandoned there to their fate and certain death, this study examines the constant alternation between care and violence that characterizes the lives of the city’s dogs.

Her lecture places Athens and Istanbul in the same frame, viewing them as two Mediterranean worlds where street dogs have repeatedly been the target of governance strategies and the subject of conflicts and demonstrations of solidarity. Mine Yildirim documents the ways in which conflicts over public space, the concept of “nuisance,” security, and belonging often center on street dogs, as well as how political protest and daily care can, as informal structures, counterbalance these pressures.

The lecture will be delivered in English.

Admission is free. Reservations are required.