Opening up a space for women: matinees in Izmir Culture Park

Abstract

This article explores how women’s practices transformed abstract space into lived space in the context of women’s matinees in the entertainment venues of Izmir Culture Park, a historical marker of Turkish modernity. Drawing on collective memory, Lefebvrian spatial theories, and gender studies, the article sets out an analytical framework through which to explore women’s spatial preferences and performances. Engaging with oral histories and archival material, the study reads women’s agency in 1970s matinees, arguing that these events opened up an alternative public space for women to liberate themselves by applying their own rituals and tactics in this space. They thus added new layers of meaning about women’s spatiality to the historicity of the park.