EV--HOME NAZLI & KAAN ILGILI--RELATED KARTPOSTALLAR POSTERLER T-SHIRTS KAGITBEBEKLER TEPKILER
SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS: NAZLI & KAAN

After exploring the earlier public service projects I arrive at the conclusion that using narrative and characters whom the audience can identify with is a good starting point. So I decided to use one female and one male character. Because I look like a typical Turkish woman with dark hair, dark eyes and body shape I decided to use myself as the both the female and male character. I modified the image of myself to create Kaan.

The selection of the names (Nazlı and Kaan) are personal but they also emphasize the fact that the naming of a child is something extremely symbolic, with historical or cultural references in most of the cases, in the Turkish context. Besides the traditional Turkish names with the emphasis of the social roles related to gender differences the most recent popular names for children which are said to be "modern" names involve the similar attitude. Nazlı means coy, delicate, and elegant and Kaan means king, sultan, and khan.

As the youngest member of a lower middle-class family Nazlı and Kaan in fact both stand for the female or male version of each other. They basically pose the question of (and answer it at the same time) what would happen to a child from the same family in the same environment and the culture if s/he were born a boy or a girl. It is actually a real and personal episode from my own life when I discovered I would have been named Kaan if I were born a boy. But instead I was called Nazlı as my first name. What would be different in my life if I were born as Kaan? The super ego, described as the internalized representation of the society's ethics and values as been taught by the by the parents and the others to the child (Rita, Richard Atkinson, Psikolojiye Giriş), is being questioned through the two characters Nazlı and Kaan as to show the gender discrimination or differentiation in Turkey.

For instance males are more likely to take over social roles according to their gender because the so-called "masculine activities" are more valued, whereas the so-called "feminine activities" are punished or approached as taboos by society. Both sexes try to shape each other in a certain way and they get bored of it. According to research, both male and female children think girls do the following: enjoy playing with the dolls, like to help their mothers, talk a lot, never hit, they always say "I need help", and become teachers or nurses when they grow up. The same group thinks the boys do the following: play with cars, like to help their fathers, enjoy building things, say "I can beat you", and become bosses when they grow up. When the lives of the two characters, Nazlı and Kaan are observed, these activities and society's reaction to them is brought to the surface.

COMPONENTS:

THE HOME TRUTHS BRAND IDENTITY

The HOME TRUTHS campaign has multiple components, which utilize a consistent visual vocabulary to define an integrated and pervasive system. But it needed a strong element to provide audience recognition and recall the over all campaign. As mentioned earlier the name refers to an "embarrassing truth kept within the family but not revealed outside". Although it certainly is not a common or well-known phrase in English nor Turkish, most people who were asked of their opinion replied they understood the concept easily. The meaning fits the concept of the campaign, and the use of a non-common or unusual phrase creates curiosity. Hence attracting the attention of the audience, the repeated use of the identity mark on each component reinforces the concept of the campaign and provides a unifying element among all parts.

Because HOME TRUTHS is about gender relationships and inequalities, the identity mark must transmit the togetherness but inequality. The mark needs to be credible and a bit uneasy, referring to something hidden or not totally revealed. As a result the black silhouettes of a male and a somewhat cropped female figure are used with an active and strong typeface, Pricedown, tying both of them to each other in white as the "revealed truth of home".

POSTCARDS

Finding a street level, ubiquitous, accessible, easily and economically reproducible and interactive medium required thoughtful observation. The use of the Internet for the main component was eliminated because although highly interactive, it was not accessible to the population I wanted to reach. Television and radio were eliminated because they were high in cost. In the end not surprisingly a printed medium seemed the most promising because it met the above criteria. The first sketches were done using collected stock photography portraying men and women in different situations. The stock images were selected from a book which included vintage family photographs with real gender roles portrayed. Since they were very much generic and stereotyped in terms of gender, they gave me the idea of using opposite images to what is expected. The characters would also have to be Turkish. It is a subversive tactic: defamiliarization as a design strategy to grasp the attention of the audience. Stock photography or "pictures for rent", in essence offers a way of studying images as currency that funds advertising, posters, book covers, magazines, and innumerable other forms of visual communication. According to Lupton & Miller

The condition of hyper-clarity in stock-photography results in blunt visualization of cultural stereotypes, the imagery creating our concepts of the public also forms a popular reality, they're the index of how images speak in the public realm (Design, Writing, Research, pg. 121, 133-34).

Above the images there are empty balloons (talking, thinking and speaking) waiting to be filled in by the audience. The meaning of the image or the message changes according to what is being written in the balloons. And so the images, and hence the postcards, become interactive. Because I wanted to create a context for the pictures, on the front, all of the eleven postcards have the same frame of cut out articles and images from the media about gender issues and the new civil code. The images within the frame include a glimpse of illustrations and photographs portraying men and women mostly in dramatic, extreme situations: a man crying (a famous Turkish actor, his picture taken from a recent contemporary exhibition about crying men, dealing with gender issues and politics), a submissive woman from a Melodrama poster, a seductive, sexy woman from a melodrama poster, two men beating up two women from melodrama posters again, and a Turkish pattern from traditional, historical art work. The frame points at and documents how the media in fact is framing our way of looking at things, specifically men and women and their gender roles.

The back of the postcard provides the audience with the information about the Home Truths campaign. Each card includes the Home truths identity mark, a rhyming text giving information about what to do with the postcard, the address of the web site where additional information may be obtained. Also a very brief description of what to do with the postcard is written in English, considering some of the tourists who may be interested in the project:

Sec kime söyleyeceğini

Yaz gonder istedigin gibi

Evinin gerceğini

Fill in and send out as you wish

Bilgi icin: www.girlsawthesea.com/EVGERCEKLERI/index.html

Each postcard includes a short descriptive text about a law related to women's or human rights. With the help of a Turkish female lawyer, Özgül Fırlangeç, who was actively involved in the process as a member of a women's rights organization, I have chosen only seven laws which seem the most significant and effective in improving the lives of women and men. The image on the front relates to the law on the back. Since the space on the back of the card is limited, the amount of text is kept to a minimum. The laws are written in Turkish and the text includes the article number, the name of the law and a brief explanation. It sounds formal and credible but approachable. According to Richard Brodie "gaining someone's trust is an effective way to bypass their skepticism and make it possible to program them with new memes" (Virus of the Mind, pg. 152). The English translation which is not a legal translation but rather a descriptive one is as follows:

The Turkish Civil Code has changed, dated 1st of January 2002.

THE AUTHORITY IN ALIMONY TRIALS article 177- After the divorce, authority in the alimony trials belongs to the court where the party to be granted alimony resides.

THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY article 186- The couple jointly selects the place where they will live. They jointly manage the household and contribute to the best of their abilities with labor and possessions.

THE CHOICE OF OCCUPATION article 192- Neither husband nor wife has to have the permission of his/her spouse regarding the choice of the job or occupation. Nevertheless the good of the family should be taken into consideration when choosing a job or occupation.

THE LEGAL POSSESSIONS REGIME article 202- Between the husband and the wife, it's essential to apply the regime of joining the possessions. The possessions owned during the marriage should be divided into two equal parts in case of a divorce. The couple can accept from other regimes mentioned in the law by a possession regime contract.

THE AGE FOR MARRIAGE article 124- No man or woman can get married before the age of seventeen. Only in extraordinary cases can a 16 year old get married.

THE PROTECTION OF THE FAMILY article 4320- if an individual has been the victim of domestic violence; she or he has the right to request a restraining order against the abuser. There is no charge for this. The regional police have the right to follow up with the household.

Know, protect & fight for your rights...

Ultimately Home Truths would be achieving one of its objectives if the audience gets interested in the postcards enough to turn them over (or interested in the poster to read the text) and gets the pill of information coated with sugar. Like the subversive Trojan horse method of programming: "getting you to pay attention to one meme, then sneaking in a bundle of other memes along with it" (Virus of the Mind, pg. 143). If the audience wonders about the connection between the images in the front and the text at the back and start to question, another objective is achieved. Lastly, if they fill out the postcard and send it to someone else and, ultimately if that someone receives the message of the sender and the information then the objective of creating an environment of debate and communication and finally tolerance would be achieved.

In this campaign, distribution of ideas is also achieved through conditioning by repetition and cognitive dissonance. According to Brodie if "new memes conflict with your old ones, a mental tension is created. Your mind wants to resolve the conflict. It does so by creating a new meme" (Virus of the Mind, pg. 142).

On the front, the background for the images on the front of the postcards are collages of photographs all taken from various newspapers and magazines. They have a halftone pattern referring to the quality of the images on daily newspapers and their pattern with dots emphasized, again with the commentary of media's ubiquitous impact on our lives. The images of Nazlı and Kaan (which are both in fact the images of myself) are in grayscale to strengthen unreal or surreal feeling of the composition and the situation they are in. In some of the postcards the white space around the character or the characters are more in order to emphasize the more unlikely or unrealistic situation.

Family Picture involves the photo of an extended family, which is the traditional family type in Turkey. Nazlı is standing out rather rebelliously among the family members.

Shopping takes place in a typical market place in Turkey called "pazar", usually it is the man calculating the money and woman spending it. It is the other way around this time. It is also a commentary on the fact that who controls the money rules the house.

Hearing portrays Nazlı and Kaan in a court together arm in arm facing whatever ahead together. Kaan is in the arm of Nazlı this time. But they look equal behind the bars in front of the law.

Tea Party is a very typical women's activity where only women are welcomed, and, on occasion, male children. But a man in a tea party is really out of place, a man serving something to women is unheard of.

Coffeehouse is a men's club. Similar to the tea party card the opposite sex is not welcomed. But no little girls are allowed this time. Drinking tea and coffee, reading newspapers, watching soccer games, playing cards are the most typical activities but Nazlı is breaking the rule by being there and reading a book.

Lift portrays Nazlı holding Kaan in her arms. Taking into consideration the strength and power of the male body, it's most likely for a man to do what he's doing. But it might be underestimation of women's power. Also by holding a person in ones arms that person seems to be weak, defenseless, in need and the other one strong and caring.

Game is about the most popular sport in Turkey– soccer. This is very similar to football in the USA. Although there are women soccer players, they don't have popularity or a formal league like men do. It is bizarre to see them play together.

Bus is taking place in the public transportation arena which most people access daily. It is a place where sexual abuse or harassment is taking place. It is mostly the man abusing women. This time Nazlı seems to be more interested in Kaan although she's dressed to be the pretty girl and he's dressed to be the hunk, the macho guy.

Parliament is sadly a very unreal composition. In Turkey out of a hundred members of Parliament only four are women. And historically, the president of parliament has always been a man. Here the power relations are emphasized through the change of roles.

Driver has a similar idea to the "Parliament" postcard with a different setting. Who gets the driver's seat, and leads the way, or who sits at the back, enjoys the ride or scares? The tea tray is popping out from the corner to give the postcard more of a Turkish context.

Cleaning of a house is usually the job of women, staying indoors as well. This time Kaan does the cleaning in the traditionally decorated house and Nazlı being outside peeks in from the street.

The figures, the background, the frame with empty balloons are signs which prompt the audience to create meaning. The text that's written by the audience is the signified and with each handwritten by a different person, a different sign and an individual, personal meaning is created. When the front with this sign is added to the text (information about the new civil code) on the back a different meaning is achieved again. If the postcard is addressed to a significant individual then a third level of meaning is created. For example a Turkish woman filling in the KAHVEHANE/COFFEEHOUSE postcard have written "how unbelievable to realize that we have so many differences" and said she would like to send it to her husband whom she was married to for 33 years. The moment you see the postcard with the image of a woman reading a book and a man playing cards by himself sitting at the same table in a coffeehouse you think of something but when you read what's written in the balloon you think something else and when you turn the back side and see the information about the new civil code regarding the minimum age to be able to get married you start interpreting things differently. And of course if you know the person this postcard is intended for then some other meaning occurs.

Because of the limited budget for reproduction an inexpensive way to reproduce the postcards was an issue. Printing on both sides of a postcard, with eleven different front designs, will cost over one thousand dollars. But having digital prints of only one side in color and having stamps made for the logo and text for the back reduces the production cost. More postcards can be added to these as more suggestions are made.

DISPLAY

The postcards will be placed on a display designed to give people more information and context regarding the Home Truths campaign. Through its size, the display serves to draw attention to the campaign and related material. It is planned to be placed in indoor areas where people from different social backgrounds will have access to them. I have identified and spoken with the owners of two locations- a bookstore and café that also sells horse racing bets where people of diverse backgrounds congregate; and a gas station and bakery again with a similar profile.

The display includes the images of Nazlı and Kaan looking, seeming to be interested and communicating with each other and two types of text: one of them is the information about the new civil code and the other is some selections from the responses of the audience collected in Turkey from a test group.

POSTERS

Posters utilize the postcard images with additional text and information. These serve as the voice of the people on the streets by including actual responses to the postcards in their own handwriting. Secondly they are interactive with the tear-off pieces including the information of the organizations which might help you with human and women's rights issues and for legal consultancy. The posters are the most positive and humorous of all responses selected by the designer. They include the following text:

The Turkish Civil Code has been revised on January 1st, 2002.

From now on the women are also head of the family like men are. They both have the equal responsibilities of taking care of children, finance and equal rights on the decisions on where to live and choice of occupation.

Know, protect & fight for your rights...

KUCAK - LIFT

Istanbul

Nazli: When Isaid "equality", this is not what I was thinking.

MECLIS - PARLIAMENT

By Gulendam Noyan, Istanbul

Nazli: Wait a minute, you're skirting the issues again!

Kaan: I can't get away with empty words anymore.

MAC - GAME

Istanbul

Man: We'll win the championship with the help of women.

T-SHIRT

Two of the early identity mark sketches were rejected because they were too complex and specific. These were ultimately useful and repurposed for the front of the t-shirts, still including the Home Truths logo. They are basically two of the images from the postcards simplified and abstracted. At the back, the pattern of articles and images, used in all components, is repeated with an empty talking or thinking bubble. The t-shirts are turned into an interactive area of communication and debate with the empty transparent pocket to place text. Text can be changed at the user’s discretion. They also serve as a promotional component for the project.

PAPERDOLLS

Exhibited on the display with the postcards, the paper dolls introduce the two characters Nazlı & Kaan to the audience. It includes two paper dolls and six outfits which may go on each of the paper dolls interchangeably. Turkish people are familiar with paper dolls- playing with them as small children. Although it appears to be more women-oriented, it involves the participatory narrative and is a part of our visual culture. The descriptive text about the two characters which is placed on the paper doll component is as follows:

Nazlı, like her name suggests, was brought up delicate, coy... She was the younger daughter of a lower middle-class family. She wanted to study airplane engineering and play soccer. They said "that's what boys do." She dated more than once they said "she's acting like a boy--she has to behave." She got married to the man she dated for a long time because it was expected. She divorced and her family was devastated because they were expected to be ashamed. She wanted to go out with a boy she liked but his family rejected her because she was a divorcee. She became a flight attendant they thought they had the right to abuse her. She finally had kids and she was expected to quit her job and stay at home. She felt ashamed of her large hips and big stomach but proud of her long hair, they liked it... If she were born a boy, her name would be Kaan...

Kaan, like his name suggests, was brought up like a king, a sultan... He was the younger son of a lower middle-class family. He wanted to study art. They said "it's a female job." He wanted to go to dance classes. They said "it's what girls do." He hated his job but they said "he had to work to take care of his family and bring home money." He beat up his daughter to save the family honor because he was seeing a boy--that's what he was supposed to do. He hated to see his wife get tired but they said "it's her job anyway", he listened. He couldn't wear an earring or grow his hair long because they didn't approve of it. He was ashamed of his bald head but proud of his hairy chest... If he were born a girl, his name would be Nazlı...

Although there are other examples in the market having similar scale, the size of the paper doll is kept small because of budget restrictions and to fit on a standard paper size.

WEBSITE

The web site serves as the support channel for the project to be experienced globally. Also it is a place where the responses can be easily collected. Because of its potential international audience the site is bilingual, both in English and Turkish. I would like to have more languages but because of the time and space constraint and translation issues, only two are used. The web site consists of the following sections: What's Home Truths, Nazlı & Kaan, Related to the New Code, Postcards, Posters, T-shirts, Paper Dolls, Responses.

In December 2001, I returned to Turkey with the intent of contacting potential sponsors and getting feedback on my project to date. First, I revised the public space that I was aiming to use according to the feedback. Previously I defined it as: malls & markets, parks, tea parks, coffee houses, cafes, Internet cafes, stadiums, sport complexes, public transportation, bus stops, phone booths, sidewalks, vending machines, kiosks, schools, hospitals, waiting rooms, newsstands, corner shops. There is a major street in Istanbul, Istiklal Street, Beyoğlu in the Taksim neighborhood, that is an ideal location to present this project to the diverse groups in Turkey. Everyday on this street, people from every age group, many religions and social, economic and political classes cross paths in this bustling area of exchange which includes shops, arcades, parks, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, and public toilets. People expect to come across something that is not usual or expected in their own environment or neighborhood so they are generally receptive and open to new different ideas.

I will consider this project fully realized when it is disemminated to more people whom it was designed for. Even before this happens, I believe communicators, designers and students can benefit from it considering the intent and the design tactics and strategies employed, for example the use of narrative and interactivity; the exploration of different mediums, everyday/mundane objects. Finally, some of the characteristics of narrative that I pursued in my project which are applicable to practitioners are:

Time & Space: situation, setting.

Authorship for an idea: interaction, interpretation.

Entertainment: humor, fantasy, emotion.

Curiosity: engagement, motivation, challenge, tension, complication.

Continuity: repetition.

Role models: characters, identification, empathy, self-awareness, intimacy.

As responses from each person differ, similar patterns within the reactions to Home Truths project may be observed from the people from the similar cultural backgrounds. As Roland Barthes argues in "Photographic Message", the signification is developed by connoted messages chosen, composed, constructed, treated in aesthetic or ideological norms by virtue of a given society and history and on the plane of denotation, connotation tools like trick affects, pose, objects, photogenia, aestheticism, syntax forms a mythical signification. For instance the postcard MAC/GAME does not include anything unusual in American context. Among Turkish audience it received three main responses; one about the physical beauty of the female figure (for example: she has beautiful legs, or she didn't shave her legs), one about her being incapable of playing (soccer is our job girl or oh god, what else will we see?), and one about how surprising it's to see a woman playing good soccer (for example, is this a woman). In the postcard KUCAK/LIFT one American was concerned about the diet and whereas the Turkish audience did not bring that up at all. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger argues "society increases its belief in itself by the help of the images" and so each an every response tells something about the culture we grow in:

Nobody just talks. Every speech-act includes the transmission of messages through the languages of gesture, posture, clothing, hair-style, perfume, accent, social context etc. over and above, under and beneath, even at cross-purposes with what words actually say (pg.139).

Every message is made of signs and no sign can ever be free of others. According to Umberto Eco:

a sign is anything that can be taken as significantly substituting for someone else 'in all aesthetic functions' many messages on different levels are ambiguously organized, the ambiguities follow a precise design, both normal and ambiguous devices in any one message exert a contextual pressure on the normal and ambiguous devices in all the others, the way in which the rules of one system are violated by one message is the same as that in which the rules of other systems are violated by their messages. (Qtd. In Terence Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics, pg. 134-141).

We never arrive at a final reading of the message but "the moment that the game of intertwined interpretations gets underway, the text compels one to consider the usual codes and their possibilities" so it produces further knowledge (Qtd. In Terence Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics, pg. 142). There is no right or wrong when you are filling out the postcards. If you are reading and/or filling them out, the postcards are serving their purpose. It is a subversive tactic. Ignorance or lack of response is the worst outcome even worse than the people who may want to tear all the postcards down because they might find them offensive. But at least they would be reacting to it, which means they absorbed the information.

Although every step of this project is carefully planned and thought about; during the visual layout and design process the arbitrariness of some small decisions and the preferred outcome of some accidents should not be denied.

Design for sure is not plainly a commercial profession. It’s very influential in social life and culture. Home Truths, like the Map of Awareness, takes the design and designer to a different level where it is not only commercial or eye candy, but socially engaged and responsible. I hope the process book of a designer might open a way to reconsider the impact of design and the use of different creative strategies for good purpose.

TERMINOLOGY

Defamiliarization: the term (along with "making strange") used by Russian formalists to identify the principal function of art works. The principal function of poetry and presumably other art works is to challenge our habitual modes of perception. It can only do so by a process of defamiliarization.

Indigenous knowledge: information, experiences and knowledge often passed from one generation to the next via oral and other traditional channels.

Individualized experience: something that preserves the capability of individual thinking and individual interpretation of facts that are happening, it's something that might shield a person from indoctrination and leave some freedom of taking more or less conscious choices.

Meme: a thought, belief, or attitude in someone's mind that can spread to and from other minds.

Tolerance: to bear, sustain, respect, and recognize someone else's beliefs, practices without sharing them. Freedom from bigotry or prejudice.

Cause: basis for the design action or response to a problem

Method: commitment to a research-based practice contextually oriented to the problem or audience.

Impact: the project outcome that addresses the cause, how solution functions in context.

NOTES

*"The Map of Awareness" has been selected & sponsored for the contemporary art show "A Monopoly of a Legend- 1870Beyoglu2000" in Istanbul/ Turkey. And It has been and will be printed, distributed and actually be used from 29 September 2000 through 6 January 2001. Yapı Kredi Cultural Activities, Art and Publishing Inc. Feature Presentation / Coming Attractions Inc. September 2000