The Memory Walks organized within the scope of our Memory Journey program continued with increased participation in 2019. We learned more from one another and improved our method in every walk.
The Memory Walks are open to the participation of everyone, primarily targeting the youth and the walks regularly take place each month, usually at the weekends. Walks are centered around the unspoken/muted narratives and stories in the history of Turkey. Our aim is to facilitate critical thinking against the dominant historical narratives through the alternative stories told by our young narrators.
In Memory Walks, participants split up into groups and try to find the memory spaces by deciphering the passwords related with the history of the memory space or with the story behind space. When they arrive to memory spaces, they listen to the narratives of spaces from the young narrators who are waiting for them there. Participants explore at least 3 memory spaces in a Memory Walk. At the end of the walk, a final session is held where the participants share their experiences and thoughts about the walk.
Karakutu Association organized 69 Memory Walks since 2015. The walks that we started by reaching a small audience in 2015 now reached 1003 participants at the end of 2019. Number of routes and memory spaces in our walks has expanded each year with the contribution of our young narrators.
In 2019, we organized 22 Memory Walks. 11 of these walks targeted the youth participants, 9 of them were for adults. We also organized 2 walks for fellow organizations of Karakutu Association. We reached a total of 267 participants in these walks. We added the Sultanahmet route, which is a gender themed route, to the existing Beyoğlu, Şişli, Cağaloğlu, Beşiktaş and Yeldeğirmeni routes, which are mixed themed routes.
In Memory Walks, we were delighted with the feedback received from our participants who explored various routes through the Memory Walks.
“Memory Walks should be organized more frequently, I am looking forward to attend walks in different routes.”
“Passwords and activities made the walk really entertaining.”
“Routes should absolutely be longer. Hoping to walk on sunny, beautiful days.”
