The Lightwell (Boşluk)

Sounds infiltrate, from inside to outside, and outside to inside… ‘The Lightwell’ listens to the sounds that intensified inside buildings during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is an auditory experience that everyone, who had the luxury to stay at their homes during the pandemic, went through. As people withdrew to their homes, the sounds that come from apartments increased; “private” sounds mixed with “public” sounds that leaked from outside into inside. Begüm Özden Fırat finds a visual representation to this auditory experience by turning her camera into the lightwell of the building, where sounds accumulate. With its curtains, windows and pipes; the lightwell is much like a concrete gullet that swallows all the sounds of the pandemic period, unknown to the inhabitants of the building:  We hear the sounds of public celebrations related to cyclical national and political events, such as April 23^rd, National Sovereignty and Children's Day; May 19^th, the Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day, when the whole neighbourhood sang the national anthem; as well as the celebration of the MayDay, and May 31, the anniversary of the Gezi Uprising, when people chanted revolutionary songs and slogans on their balconies and windows.   These sounds also sneak into the lightwell, and from there into the so-called nucleus of the private realm, home.  ‘The Lightwell’, especially with its final scene, emphasizes its focus on the border between the public and the private. Begüm Özden Fırat researches the place of sounds within Kurtuluş/Tatavla district’s daily life, yet ‘The Lightwell’ also traces the changes in her relationship with her own research practices:  With its cumulative screens and inside-building encounters, ‘The Lightwell’ explores the lines between positions of “building inhabitant”, “eavesdropper” and “researcher” as much as the borders between the private and the public.

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