Travel Article: “A MELANCHOLY VIEW OF THE WORLD” – Cem Kaptan

As a nine year old boy I found myself crossing my first big border. Geographically being on the other side of a continent seemed so large then but that has since shrunk. Living constantly on a cultural front, trying to matter, adapting but not getting sucked in. You could say it was a constant rhetorical battle of my experiences reporting from the front to my root self.

Like me, the space that bears my essence had the same faith. An ancestry of constant battles on many fronts, Turks had many years of thinking about their fronts. Many of those thoughts scary. A constant worry and with good reason too. The worry of the possibility of borders changing, cultural borders, but also wondering what’s on the other side.

Although these are a set of overused examples of the Turkish struggle of self-find, it also explains its take of the topic of the biennale. Although I can relate, I could never quite grasp why there is a never-ending effort to prove existence? I feel that you have to stand somewhere to be able to prove something not show what’s left behind. When the approval stage of an existence only feeds from the past, the current becomes second thing of importance and that future cannot exist. Let’s admit what we are and just get on with it. Also how can a country not have the capability to choose someone and have to do it with a competition. Maybe we can start there.

Our front is on two sides. One side is constantly finding excuses to close it and the other trying to cross it. We will do everything to go to the closed side and we loathe the open side. They risk their children’s lives to leave your country on a dingy. How shit is your country? No it is not, we use to do business with Venice. We can’t be shit.

OBSERVATION + NOTES

Aravena you cheeky monkey. Nice start.

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An interpretation of most pavilions was and should be tackling their own problems on their own fronts. The idea of the front and that the idea of protecting it came ever so close to the last century in the last couple of years. With the world and especially Middle East in constant turmoil it is easy for the perpetuators behind the desk to climb ever higher on their high horses. I could not find many words to describe my feelings seeing the Dutch play the moral police by showing the unmatchable work that the UN does. There were no shopping malls in shantytowns of Cape Town, or maybe I didn’t see them.

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Britain is an island. Not for a minute, day, hour… look at the poor peasants dying, oh its five o clock, let’s have some tea.

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I think that we injected so much into Germany that they think more about us than we do of ourselves. It really is a love story. Maybe they can teach us how we can care about Turkish people or we can move there..

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Russia is great and will always be great and will all ways be great. Full stop.

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Romains are weird aren’t they?

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I could not think of a better way to explain the fragility of our concrete filled cities then Thailand’s take on their post-earthquake thought. A series of building on a bendable rod susceptible to many factors. Each building is its own edge. An earthquake can destroy a building like a war can destroy a child’s innocence.

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Even though that the development of South Korea can easily be linked to Americas (there has been an immense funding and technology sharing between the two countries) fear of their northern friends, it is always amazing to see their capability. Tackling any problem from ground zero means that when they are done with the progress there can be nothing left but a series of solutions. Start with that one.

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I would love to have examined Iran and Yemen cause they have immensely delicate taste but we are better than them cause we are a little bit further west, aren’t we? But still, the tranquility of their aesthetics continues to amaze and inspire me.

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Australians love a pool and a barbeque. Who wouldn’t when you have sunshine all year round and already cleared of all the unnecessary mosquitoes and bugs and aborigines. Oh shit sorry. But Aussies are really nice. British on holiday. oh its five o clock, let’s have a swim.

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Go and visit New Zealand’s work it’s one of the ones scattered within the city. They are really lonely there and they are genuinely nice.

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The Chinese are fucking crazy. They will take over the world. Sign up to a Mandarin language course NOW!

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Is everyone in Greece a traveling student?

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On a final note a conversation I had between security guard at Scarpas Fondazione Querini Stampalia, I learned that I cannot go into a museum that I do not need a ticket for because the ticket office is closed. Also the supermarket layouts in Venice are as complicated as their streets.