"Kısır" Night
July 2023 - June 2024
DÜZCE
The "Kısır" Night project focuses on one of the homosocial areas where men show/prove their manhood to each other. Kısır night is the name of the bachelor party organized by the men of the Erzurum province a night before the wedding. This is an entertainment night for the groom and his friends. If the party is in a rural area, guests gather at the village council room, whereas in the city, the meeting place is a coffee house or an alternative venue. Gatherings in such places can be considered as meetings where males display, solidify and ultimately reinforce their representations of masculinity and where their dominance is remembered/approved. The party comprises of two main parts. The first part includes traditional improvised theater, which is also participated by children and the elderly. In the second part, children and the elderly leave the venue and stories are told. One of the basic and most significant meanings of this party and gathering is the effort to be potentially didactic. In the second part, in particular, story tellers are middle-aged individuals and these stories are told in order to teach younger ones the “proper” ways of sex. Within the scope of the project, the improvised theatre shows staged at the bachelor parties organized by the men of Erzurum one day prior to the wedding, as well as the images/representations contained in the stories told there will be traced through artistic visualization.