As Days Started Walking

Description: Hande Sever’s video work Günler Yürüdüğünde (As Days Started Walking) critically examines the dehumanization of political dissidents. The piece traces the origins of this systematic oppression to the introduction of the Hollerith tabulator—a punchcard-based proto-computer used to sort populations. By juxtaposing found footage from Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) with letters detailing the aftermath of the 1980 Turkish coup d’état, Sever intertwines her mother’s personal experiences with a broader historical narrative. Through this the work exposes the insidious methods used by the military to target dissidents, highlighting how indexing and categorization became tools of exclusion and repression under authoritarian regimes. Sever’s use of archival TRT footage serves as an inquiry into the involvement of state-controlled mass media in the systematic marginalization of political dissidents and activists.

Materials: Letters written by the artist’s mother in 1983, video footage from the Turkish Radio and Television Broadcast (TRT) Archives: student protest at Istanbul University, 1979; student protest at Taksim Square, 1979; military search, 1980; military operation at Ankara University, 1980; military check points, 1980; military operation to student house, 1981; mass trials, 1982.

Image Description: Video installation view, ‘Hande Sever: As Days Started Walking’, CICA Museum South Korea, 2020.