This book project focuses on 365 days of the Parks and Recreation Department of one district municipality (Basaksehir) via analysing the information shared at its official . Basaksehir is one of 39 districts of Istanbul, located at the periphery of the city. The rapidly developing young district has urban, peri-urban and rural areas. Newly constructed public housing projects, gated communities, shopping malls co-exist with ecological conservation areas, mega projects as well as informally developed neighbourhoods. The urban development of the district allows us to understand the contemporary transformations of Istanbul.
The Department’s Twitter account is an astonishing source of information, both in terms of the archived labour of the municipal staff and the rich repertoire of spaces (private, public, landscapes) captured in the images shared. The Department’s hardworking employees perform various actions to maintain, repair, construct public spaces almost like Super Mario bros, however the public, to whom these spaces supposed to serve for, is almost entirely invisible in these images. This allows us wonderfully to focus on the spaces as abstract forms, and the actions of the workers as performances of the labour.
