The Transformation of a Summer Resort www.sayfiye.biz

Yeditepe University Department of Visual Communication and Design students and academic member Merve Çaşkurlu Belgesay started a design project to describe the transformation of former city summer resort Kadıköy Bağdat Street neighborhood where people from all over Turkey came to spend their summers.

Belgesay and students who have published numerous photos, videos, texts and images on the web site "www.sayfiye.biz " with the slogan "Lost Neighborhood Memories", aim to promote the project with events like workshops with neighborhood residents, meetings, creative urban interventions, discovery walks in the neighborhood, street interviews, developing

The Goal is to find Values that Make Us Human

Merve Çaşkurlu Belgesay, about the page and project, which is constantly and collectively renewed "People are not aware of what they have lost and gained in this rapid change. Our deed is to find and store what we have lost as well as the values that make us humans. We have to protect our memories.”

Belgesay, who has lived in Suadiye for 6 years, tells us that the project started on a summer’s day amongst the noise of urban transformation with meeting a 90-year-old man, who had an old hardware shop and a garden apartment on the street.

This was the fourth time that she had found a victim to urban transformation in the neighborhood. She said: “"I had the idea that I should turn this matter into a project."

From the Lecture Hall to the Streets
First, Belgesay covered this matter in her course at Yeditepe University. Later she asked her students to show the transformation of the neighborhoods at Bagdat Street from Bostancı to Fenerbahçe with photographs and short animated images. Then, they opened a web page and started to share these works there.

A Call to the Residents of Kadıköy
Noting that they want to listen to people’s stories in their workshops, Belgesay said, "We are expecting residents of Kadıköy to participate with their photographs and videos. In this way, a permanent, historical work based on verbal accounts will emerge. We will announce these events in the forthcoming days”.