Eylem Ertürk

#TheVoidCity is a tribute to the voids in cities, the empty spaces not utilised for anything, to uselessness, to emptiness, to nothingness – within a world of materials valued and defined by their functions and communicative powers in cities. Urban façades are dominantly used for commercials, but there are still ones left out due to not having enough commercial value or that are ignored or somehow not discovered yet. What is the value of emptiness in an urban environment? How can we just keep the empty space for the sake of emptiness? Through long walks in the 16^th district of Vienna, the focus was on finding the visual voids on façades, the ones without any assigned function. #TheVoidCity map, 3 to 2 meters, was created to this end to frame and display some of these examples of empty façades located on a satellite map of the region. It was installed on an eye-level billboard outside the gallery in the 16^th district, aiming to engage passers-by, neighbours and visitors. The back wall of the billboard inside the gallery displays home sketches, and empty façade drawings created throughout the lockdowns during the coronavirus outbreak. #TheVoidCity is a work-in-progress, first implemented in June 2021 in Vienna, and developing into a project dealing with issues of digital public spaces, power and visual representation and emptiness/void as a curatorial approach and space.