Disaster after disaster (wars, pandemic, and earthquakes) along the Turkey-Syria border expose the nation state’s obsolescence. But they also reveal people on the margins, repeatedly displaced, yet nonetheless building mutual aid networks to survive. These grassroots efforts offer a blueprint for the need, desire, and possibility of futures beyond oppressive systems that feed from crises and destruction.
Merve Bedir is an architect. Her work focuses on infrastructures of hospitality and mobility. A secondary line of research refers to the collective intelligences and imaginaries of the landscape. She is currently a visiting professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne- EPFL Architecture. Merve is co-founder of Aformal Academy in Pearl River Delta region, Kitchen Workshop in Gaziantep, and Center for Spatial Justice in Istanbul. Merve holds a PhD from Delft University of Technology, and a BArch from Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Previously, she worked as assistant professor in Hong Kong University, Department of Architecture. She co-chaired Design for Partnerships for Change panel of the United International Architects Conference (2023). Her recent publications include “Kitchen Workshop: Citizenship as Infrastructure” in Feminist Infrastructural Critique (2024), and New Silk Roads in e-flux architecture (co-editor, 2019, 2024). Merve’s recent design projects include an industrial kitchen in Gaziantep, Turkey, and Postane repair project in Istanbul.