 In the winter of 2016, the chair of the management board of a leading construction company in Turkey, they're called Folk Art, proudly announced the plans for a monumental mix use project in a building thought in a central location in Izmir, which is called Basmane. And there you see the plot that we are interested in. The plot in question was known as the pit of shame due to its neglected condition. Here you can see behind this water body there. It had indeed been left to the forces of nature since 1988 when it was excavated for the construction of a World Trade Center, which was never built. Filled with rainwater and inhabited by various species of living organisms, the site stood at an anomaly at the heart of the city. Folk Art, the company, they invited five national and international architectural firms to develop design proposals for the plot. The upcoming projects were strikingly similar, each consisting of a soaring tower of eye-catching architectural features generated by the latest technological means and accommodating luxurious residential, commercial, and office area. Here you see the proposals. These projects are totally in line with neoliberal urban development policies based on urban renewable schemes which favor private investors to build income-generating mixed-use projects. The chair of Folk Arts Management Board, says, and I'm quoting, as a work of art emerges from the pit, and this is the work of art, from the pit that caused the feeling of shame in every one of us, shame. The entire city will be cleansed of the negative energy that had emanated from the site, and the work will be registered as a sign of transformation and great change in the city's history. Now, this chair's use of the term negative energy clearly refers to the uncontrolled growth of wild nature in the city center. Yet his assertion about changing the course of the city's history calls for further attention, especially since the site is located in a historically significant part of the city. Questions proliferate. First of all, how our history and nature, which are generally sources of pride in the dominant fiction of contemporary urbanism, be related to shame? Which history and which nature are the topics of this discourse? And secondly, if the responsibility for the present condition of the site lies on the site of the urban administrators, why should the citizens bear the burden of shame? How can I be ashamed of something that I have not created a part? And how can this generalized notion of shame be theorized? We have a small section on explaining our theoretical basis on shame. In its everyday use, shame means lots of honor and respect and clearly involves the presence of an other's gaze, somebody else is causing the shame. Here, other refers not only to other subjects, but also to the big other, called the symbolic order, if you are familiar with psychonautical theory, which is the realm of language, society and mind. While shame is often associated with being exposed in a socially or ethically inappropriate situation, here we are concerned with the kind of shame that involves seeing rather than being seen. Here, shame begins when one sees an intolerable lack in the symbolic realm, realm of language and law. As psychonautical theory contends, the symbolic realm, which is believed to embody plenitude, which is supposed to be complete, unbreakable, is always already marked with a founding left, which is covered over by such means as fantasies. So that notion of wholeness is preserved. Shame results in the perception of the revelation of what needed to be concealed. The question that follows is what to do with such perception, although the immediate reaction may be to forget or to cover up the intolerable. The Leusian theory contends that the acknowledgement of shame may lead to the creation of new forms of resistance and creativity and for the genesis of new becoming, so shame can be turned into something positive. In the work of the Leus and his followers, shame can be active and affirmative rather than reactive and inward looking. While identification with the gaze of this big other, the one who sees, may result in feeling shame, beauty's perceived lack, seeing the lack outside of our habitual perceptions may result in the disruption of what passes as reality in a given society, what is known as the dominant fiction. Now the rest of the paper is structured in two parts, history and nature. So the first part is the shame of history. The second part is shame of nature. History and nature are the two components of the discourse on this site. The majority of discourse on the pit of shame dates to history to the 1930s. Indeed, 1932 marks the first construction attempt on the site after it remained in ruins following the great fire of Izmir in 1922. You can see the extent of the fire on the side, the picture on the left. The fire which originated in Basmane, this area that we are talking about, resulted in the destruction of 300 hectares of land and the erasure of the majority of the city's non-Muslim population. Remaining vacant for almost two decades, the site was occupied by a bus terminal until the early 1980s. And this is what it looked like then. The rest of the neighborhood was filled with warehouses and small businesses like shoe repair shops and eateries. Following the removal of the bus terminal from this central location in the early 70s, the site witnessed numerous changes in development plans and a complicated history of ceaseless battles between forces of capital, legal and administrative mechanisms and power games played between past and present mayors, not to mention conflicts between architects, contracting firms and professional chambers. Finally, the site was excavated in 1988 after the ostentatious groundbreaking ceremony for the foundation of the Aegean World Trade Center. And this is the project which was actually never built. Construction came to a halt shortly after due to a new series of lawsuits and changes in zoning regulations. And the site remained dormant again until 2016 when folk arts or construction company leveled the ground and surrounded it with barriers in preparation for the construction of the new project which is still pending due to yet another lawsuit filed in 2017, so site is still pending. The failure to generate profit from such a central urban location may indeed point to a lack in the dominant fiction of neoliberal urban policies and may account for the feeling of shame. However, a deeper look into the history of the site reveals a different story which was brought to our attention by a 2015 essay which is titled, Is Miss Pit of Shame. So if you associate yourself, identify yourself with these mechanisms of administration and capital, then you are ashamed because I couldn't do enough intervention there, but there's another side to this story. In this particular article, the author states that one could be ashamed of the pit not because of its unsightly condition in the midst of the beautiful city of Izmir but because of its hidden history when it incorporated an Armenian hospital before the Great Fire. And nobody else mentions this hospital back, right away. At that time, the multi-ethnic population of Izmir was divided into Muslim, Greek, Armenian, Jewish, and Levantine neighborhoods, yeah. The site was incorporated in the Armenian neighborhood and was initially occupied by a guest house for impoverished and needful Armenians who had migrated from Persia. The guest house was a modern two-story building, modest one, modest two-story building which was constructed and maintained by the members of the Armenian community. It was enlarged and turned into a hospital in 1801 due to the eruption of epidemic diseases in the city and further renovated in 1847 by the donations from the community. And these are the only pictures or illustrations of plans. There are no photographs or whatever. We couldn't, as the end, we couldn't find them. With a total of 100 to 120 rooms, it functioned more like a charity organization since it housed mostly the marginalized population of the community, namely the elderly and the poor who were treated free of charge. The hospital complex, which was entered by a tall iron gate, included the main hospital, two peripheral buildings to house orphans and mental patients, a pharmacy and a church. These were located in a vegetable and flower garden with a tall fruit tree. After the buildings were completely demolished by the Great Fire, the site went under the ownership of the municipality. The following decades witnessed tireless efforts to turn the site from an area of community-based social support for the most marginalized segments of the society based on ethnicity, age, and conditions of physical and mental health to an exemplary area of neoliberal urban policies based on the supremacy of monetary profit. Covering up the pitch by soaring towers with extravagant architectural features also means it's also a means of covering up the shame of neoliberal policies by perpetuating the fantasy of a seamless urban narrative that ensures their success. However, the other history of the site clearly reveals other layers of shame by seeing the lack of profit-based master narratives of neoliberal policies in recognizing other modes of social spatial organization and the lack of nationalist master narratives in recognizing the heterogeneous ethnic constitution of the city, the Armenian hospital to be talked about. One may feel shame in the master narratives in difference to others and the intolerability of what had previously been invisible. It is this form of shame that leads to the creation of new forms of resistance beyond nostalgia for an unrepeatable past, and conformity to a ruthless present. Now, this is the history part. Come to the nature part, the shame of nature. Between 1998 and 2016, as the site remained untouched by any means of urbanity, it gradually developed a life of its own and came to be known as the pit of shame. It turned into a natural habitat for various bird and insect species, fish, frogs, and snakes. Although nature is seemingly an uncontestably dangerous and seemingly an uncontestably desirable element in the contemporary city, the relationship of proper urban order to nature is based on domestication. Nature is acceptable in the city in the form of parks, well-maintained flower beds, alongside walls probably, and carefully trimmed trees that line the boulevards. The natural environment of the pits, which nurtured the ecology that was alien to urban life, surely pointed to an uncontrollable element and a lack in the symbolic order which is defined on the basis of rational administration and control. Scanning the news reports on the pit, it is striking to see the city's selective approach to nature. Almost every article associates the site with shame, emphasizing the need to take immediate action to restart construction. Reports of outrage due to the invasion of flies, mosquitoes, and rats, parallel hygienic and security-related concerns due to accumulated garbage sheets and lack of barriers around the water body. Photographs show such views as piles of plastic bags like this one and touches of moss on the water surface accompanied by haphazard growth of reeds on the edges of the pit. Newspapers also report specific instances as if to ensure the nature-friendly approach of the dominant fiction. For example, a biology professor from an esteemed university stated that they would take an encoding, they would take every step to conserve the living organisms in the area once construction begins. Other stories include firemen armed with disproportionately protective attire who try to help a kitten that had fallen into the water or save a hero who had been choked by a plastic piece while trying to feed off the wild vegetation. These gestures can be interpreted as instances that paradise the role of the symbolic in its rather desperate attempts to cover up shame. We are friendly towards nature. The question that remains to be answered is how to account for the insistent appearance of photographs in the media. Photograph after photograph of this pit of shame. Why would one want to expose something that is supposed to cause shame? If shame is to be covered up, what is the pleasure derived from repeatedly photographing the pit and offering it to public view? There seems to be an intricate combination of fascination and contempt that underlies the city's relation to the pit, which can be partially explained by what can be called slips of time, which are really revealed upon careful scanning of text and images that potentially enable other possible ways of thinking the pit. For example, after emphasizing how shameful the site looked an article from 2011 stated that, I'm quoting from the article, the pit which is filled with rainwater looks like a piece of wetland in the city center. It even became one of the homes for water birds. Baby carp fish, simple addictor, which were thrown into the pit by the neighboring shopkeepers have grown. The pit recently turned into a hobby area for neighboring shopkeepers who seek stress relief by fishing. Contemporary urban life, which clearly demarcates the boundary between work and leisure, has no tolerance for fishing activities and a valuable piece of land in the city center. Yet there's an unmistakable kind of fascination in this description, which is surfaced by means of such terms as baby carp fish, hobby area, stress relief. The visual evidence for such fascination is even more striking. While most of the photographs depict the unsightly aspects of the pit by focusing on garbage heaps and the muddy waters, there are some which communicate otherwise. A photograph that was published in a leading local newspaper shows an outstanding contrast between text and image. While the text clearly protests the swampy state of the site and reports complaints by surrounding businesses, the accompanying photograph gives a totally different impression of the pit, which emanates enchantment rather than shame. Okay, you have this bird in the foreground, the water seems to look screened enough. Another image that shows the pit from a different angle under the moonlight has a capture that reads a unique view that is hidden in the city. Such images are captured by eyes which see outside the frame of what is given to be seen by the symbolic order. How to explain such transgressions which reveal possible lines of flight that radiate from the gap between what is seen and what is given to be seen. The notion of the scopic drive, the drive to look, is a helpful tool to understand this phenomenon. The leading psychological theories, Lacan, distinguishes between the gaze and the look. And he states that while the subject looks at and sees from one point in his or her existence, she's gazed at from all sides. We are gonna get something or three are being looked at by the symbolic basically. The split between the look and the gaze produces a relentless desire to see, know, and possess more. What can I see more? Here the subject is not really trying to see the object before him or her, but the object of absence, that is what is not there for him or her to see. Hence the scopic drive produces a transgression of the principle of pleasure. And then exorbitant pleasure that disrupts the ego identity where another reality intervenes. The scopic drive can clearly be related to the revelation of the unseen aspects of the pit of shame which counter the drive to cover it up with mainstream symbols of dominant fiction. The eruption of uncontrolled wild nature in the city, city center clearly points to a lack in the symbolic order and is a cause for shame within the parameters of the symbolic order. Hence it also points to the inability of the dominant fiction to accommodate what falls outside interest of profit-based enterprises. The possibilities that emerge from the recognition of this flag are most conspiciously manifested in the dominant fiction slips of tongue like this one in both visual and textual terms. Such instances that are cited here are not necessarily meant to be exemplary for future projects regarding the site. Yet they illustrate the possibility of imagining the city outside the boundaries of the dominant fiction. And finally, the projects that are produced to replace the pit and to cover the shame that it had generated clearly fulfill the role of an urban fantasy. In psychological terms, the fantasies give the coordinates of the subject's desires by means of a mise en scene that veils the founding leg in the other. The projected buildings with their extravagant architectural features and high-end commercial and residential accommodations provide the mise en scene to veil the exclusions of neoliberal urban policies and to channel the desires of idealized subjects of consumption. The shame of the Basmane pit can conveniently be cast off or covered up by eye-catching spiral, eye-catching capital-generating projects. However, it may also have a proto-political effect opening us to others and the world. Since it has the potential to generate a shift in the perception and enable us to see the world from a different perspective. Even if Falkard's project is realized, we contend that the shame of the pit has the potential to point to yet uncharted territories of urban imagination as lines of flight erupt from the cracks that are always already embedded in the dominant fiction. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.