Traditional Coffee House Hosts Male Violence Exhibition

A group of women sat dawn at V.I.P cafe, a traditional coffee unofficially reserved for men - in Istanbul's Tophane district last night and sipped their "bitter coffees" to commemorate slain women due to male violence.

Feminist artists Arzu Yayıntaş and Neriman Polat launched an exhibition depicting women victims' names of male violence.

The exhibition, which launched two days before this year's International Women's Day, is composed of a mirror installation depicting the names of women victims of male violence.

"Women murders are awful," a regular customer told bianet.

"Men shouldn't batter women," others agreed with the former, while still enthusiastically playing a card game.

"God prevent this happening to anyone," another one said. "It should be too hard to face for both sides. One gets killed and other is compelled to kill."

When asked about what impression the installation left on them, they said: "It vexes people. You feel like preventing this from happening in the first place. It shouldn't come to that point [of killing]."

“Even the faintest awareness is a gain”

"Regulars of the coffee house say that they wouldn't let any violent men in. Even the faintest awareness is a gain," Neriman Polat, exhibition co-artist, told bianet with a smile.

"We don't intend to stigmatize traditional coffee houses for sure. This place let us run the exhibition here, which we are thankful. We would like to see this spread across the country. If only it happened in other coffee house in Istanbul and elsewhere."

The coffee house waiter, on the other hand, complained that he didn't have to serve his customers because of having to clarify the installation to every single onlooker on the street.  

"It attracted a lot attention though. And we didn't receive any negative feedback. I wouldn't anticipate anyone to do so since we accepted the exhibition in the first place. But I am still looking forward to the day that it will be over," he said.

"Ordinary men frequenting their traditional coffee houses are looking at their everyday street through a mirror where women murder victims' names are depicted. They look through the street as long as the mirror lets them. Every name they see through the mirror is a victim of male violence," Polat and Yayıntaş said. (ÇT/BM)