Gökhan MURA

During my one month secondment in Palermo I have worked on two parallel activities in September 2021. The first part is a continuation of my previous research activities carried out in Santiago and in Paris, mapping immigrant emotions. The second is an explorative photography activity to visually document the facial expressions visible in Palermo's public spaces. 

The emotion mapping methodology I have developed during my trans-making secondments aims to visualize different emotions triggered, lived, remembered and experienced in a city by the immigrants. It aims to explore the personal emotional responses of the participants to public spaces in the city. Mapping emotions associated with certain places around the city helps us to see and empathise with the change in that particular city and helps us to develop a creative, human centred and participatory visual tool to think on how the same places in the city can be experienced by different people with different backgrounds and histories. In Palermo, I have interviewed immigrants I have accessed via the help of the host organization. I have developed the emotion survey that I have been using for Paris and Santiago. The outcomes of the survey is intended to be used for a collective and expanding Map of Palermo to provide an alternative point of view to the perception of public spaces in Palermo. The Emotion Map of Palermo survey is available online to continue collecting the desired information from the site beyond the duration of the secondment.

The second explorative methodology I have employed is to collect photographs of facial expressions on different art and design works that are visible in Palermo. As the first step of this exploration I have photographed the various artworks available in Palermo's public spaces like paintings, graffiti, murals, sculptures that consist of a facial expression. This second part of my research titled "Faces of Palermo" aims to collect photographs of these faces as a collection that is expected to document the artists' gaze upon the residents of the city. Faces of Palermo collection is expected to allow a reading of the images of faces that are employed by the artists as an interface between the public spaces and the public, defining a face to face communication with the public and various places. In the second phase of the second part of my research, I have produced postcards for Palermo out using the photographs I have taken. The postcards aims to represent Palermo through a collection of the faces that welcomes and communicates with people in the streets of Palermo.