Golden Butterflies is a public monument project done on 2014 at Ülker Street, Istanbul, one of the trans ghettos of 90s before being “refined” while the Municipality is preparing the city for the United Nation Conference on Human Settlements. The monument is realized in collaboration with Şevval Kılıç and Derin Cankaya. Stemming from giving voice to one part of the trans history of the city which has been demolished, Golden Butterflies is focused on the issues like city memory and stories erased.
In “Unspeakable Home, Enchanting Companions” exhibition, Leman S. Darıcıoğlu adds some other layers to the work to question placing a public art into a museum and puts her* effort to mobilize the audience in order to take the work to the streets by giving them the posters of Golden Butterflies (2014) and a digital map via a QR code (and the website address) placed in the exhibition area. She* also canalizes the work to bring being from outside of Schengen borders topic into question with a letter to the audience placed next to the QR code.
As part of the project a website called Golden Butterflies Public Monument which contains downloadable photo of Golden Butterflies monument done on 2014 and a voice record of Şevval Kılıç who had lived in Ülker Street in those years, has been built.
The letter to the audience:
The reproduced version of Golden Butterflies has been created with the support of Badischer Kunstverein as part of “Unspeakable Home, Enchanting Companions” exhibition curated by Derya Bayraktaroğlu.