Depo presents The Past is Present by the Memory Museum for Historical Justice, Turkey’s first digital museum and human rights archive. The Past is Present is the most comprehensive exhibition on the 1980 Coup d’État to date.
The exhibition, whose name references the slogan “The Past is Present” previously used by the Memory Museum for Historical Justice, consists of fragments and content sourced from the Museum’s collections and archival materials, materialising its digital space into a physical one. Focusing on the period between 1960–1991 and made possible thanks to the collective contributions of people directly affected by the 1980 Coup, The Past is Present brings together artworks produced collectively or individually in relation to the Memory Museum’s collections, as well as works by writers, journalists and researchers.
The Memory Museum, aims to make rights violations visible by recording crimes against humanity perpetrated during the coup, and sheds light on the 43 years of struggle for justice and practices confronting the past with a human rights archive that includes the Oral History, Court Files, Memory Objects and Seeking Justice collections. These collections include testimonies about the rise of the revolutionary struggle to student movements, unionisation, women’s political struggle and anti-fascist resistance, as well as information on the collective memory regarding the coup, the military regime and its legal system, human rights violations, the struggle for justice, international solidarity, impunity, practices of confrontation and accountability.
The Memory Museum’s permanent collections include 235 digital and 93 physical court files, thousands of pages of legal documents, 40.000 memory objects acquired from 35 different donors, 120 oral history recordings of over 300 hours, 518 physical documents, 65 newspapers and 150 books. With contributions by various institutions, human rights organisations, rights defenders, lawyers, witnesses, academics and writers, the Memory Museum aims to generate a dynamic process built on a bottom-up narrative of history, open and accessible archives, and the active participation of those who were targeted by the 1980 Coup.
The exhibition is organised by the Research Institute on Turkey and the Democracy and Memory Research Association, with content and curatorial management by Eylem Delikanlı, Aylin Tekiner and Sevim Sancaktar, and exhibition design and curation by Sevim Sancaktar.
