Library Meetings | Childhood in Izmir, Thinking About Things • Library Meetings, featuring a conversation between Serhan Ada and Bilge Bal on various forms of production and dialogue, took place at the İskele Design Library on Wednesday, 18 May, at 18.00.
Childhood in Izmir was conceived as a reader–writer conversation between Bilge Bal and Serhan Ada. The discussion was framed by Ada’s books Dökmeden Sayılan Zaman (Istanbul: Everest Publications, 2020) and Geçen Yüzyılın Ortasında Çocukluk Nesneleri (Istanbul: Everest Publications, 2019). The dialogue between Ada and Bal extended beyond this framework, revealing other potential relationships that had remained implicit or unspoken.
As they reflected together on objects, the conversation moved from apartment corners and bicycle repair shops to mapping notebooks, radio dials, slingshots, pressure lamps and concrete mixers. They discussed the relationship between fictional and creative production and human-made objects, ranging from the city itself to the beads of a barber shop curtain. Dökmeden Sayılan Zaman and Geçen Yüzyılın Ortasında Çocukluk Nesneleri formed the narrative starting point of this intellectual journey.
Drawing on the objects placed on and left behind at the table, Serhan Ada and Bilge Bal discussed a multilayered, autobiographical topography belonging to Ada. Together, they explored this landscape through writing, the city, objects and the table.
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