Professor Ömür Harmanşah publishes his essay “Ground Truthing in the Anthropocene (and the Rituals of Apology)”
The essay is published in Grounded/Yerebasan, on the occasion of Venice Architectural Biennale 2025.
Professor Ömür Harmanşah's essay “Ground Truthing in the Anthropocene (and the Rituals of Apology)” was recently published in the catalogue publication Grounded/Yerebasan, which was edited by Melis Cankara on the occasion of 19th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia for the Türkiye Pavilion. The exhibition Grounded was curated by Ceren Erdem and Bilge Kalfa.
You can download the article on Professor Harmanşah's Academia page.
The term ‘Anthropocene’ acknowledges the fact that the human is (and has always been) an agent of geological change on the planet. It acknowledges that asphalt and concrete, the core materials for urban infrastructures of industrial modernity, constitute new stratigraphic layers on Earth’s surface, entrapping or, in some cases, erasing the cultural memory of soils. The Anthropocene represents a restructuring of our understanding of planetary history, a reconfiguration of its layered past. In striking contrast to the Braudelian slow pace of history, the Anthropocene is an interruption: a turbulent episode of remarkable shifts of scale in the material transformation of world landscapes, and in the rhythms of time and temporality – a worrisome acceleration of the heart before it stops. As witnesses to this catastrophic present, I believe that we have a certain ethical responsibility to chronicle this spectacular era of the onset of industrial ruination, a dark episode of extreme extraction. What exactly is our role as artists, architects, archaeologists and historians coming to terms with the scale of planetary transformation from the sixth species extinction to the formation of the seventh continent, ‘the Great Pacific garbage patch’, a massive and menacing landmass of accumulated refuse?