From streets to courthouses: digital and post-digital forms of image activism in the post-occupy Turkey

Abstract

Despite the steady growth of authoritarianism, image activism is persistent and vibrant in Turkey. This paper examines how activists/artists used the production and circulation of political images to combat the institutional exclusion of oppositional voices following the Gezi protests (2013) and the attempted coup (2016). Using visual rhetorical analysis of images and in-depth interviews with courtroom painters, the paper focuses on ‘political’ drawings produced in enclaves of courtrooms and the strategies of image activists in visually narrating the political prisoners and/or detainees for wider networks, forming intersectional communities and creating spatial and digital visibility. In the context of the image activism in the post-Occupy Turkey, the passage from the digital to post-digital is based on, first, the top-down restrictive regulations in public and semi-public spaces and increasing police presence in places where activists previously met, and second, rising surveillance of the digital platforms, including the troll armies of the AKP government.