At what point am I didactic?

At what point do I lead?

At what point do I follow?

At what point do I listen?

At what point do I tell?

At what point am I clear?

At what point do I remain ambiguous?

At what point do I praise?

At what point do I redirect?

At what point do I seek to evoke confusion?

What questions do I ask of myself?

What questions do I ask of my students?

The slogan is Cennetoğlu’s tribute to Gurbetelli Ersöz, a Kurdish journalist who joined the Kurdistan Workers Party, a guerrilla army, and died in 1997 when a German-made, Turkish-operated tank blew off both of her legs.

The phrase is from graffiti [that Ersöz observed and wrote about in her diary] on a wall at the National Technical University of Athens (2017). It echoes the bravery in Ersöz’s diaries, which were published a year after her death in Germany and are now banned in Turkey. It is likely that Ersöz’s legs were blown off by a Leopard Tank, manufactured in Kassel and sold to the Turkish military.

Kassel, one of the epicentres of Nazi Germany, is home to the work of 160 artists spread out across the city for documenta 14 – an exhibition of contemporary art which has taken place every five years since 1955. The founder of documenta, Arnold Bode, was eager to showcase what the Nazis called Entartete Kunst or Degenerate Art in his hometown. As a result, documenta was designed to grind the Nazi interlude into dust. At documenta 14 in 2017, Ersöz’s words, “Being safe is scary” are meant to link Bode’s animosity towards Kassel’s Nazi past to Cennetoğlu’s tribute to the journalist.

...Sniffing at the edges of Kassel are not only the tank manufacturers, but also the neo-Nazis. ...Halit Yozgat, a Turkish-German, was the ninth person to be murdered by a neo-Nazi group [on April 6, 2006.] ... A German intelligence officer Andreas Temme, who despite being embedded in a fascist cell at the time Yozgat was killed, claims not to have noticed anything remiss with the group’s activities."

--Vijay Prashad