In 2017, at Hafıza Merkezi, we began exploring innovative ways to tell stories about enforced disappearances in Turkey. Our hope was to communicate these grave human rights violations through creative approaches that resonate with the modes of interaction of younger and emerging generations.

We launched this effort by organizing a hackathon on February 11, 2017, where we brought together our data and findings on enforced disappearances with individuals from a range of creative disciplines. Close to 40 participants joined the meeting, coming from backgrounds such as software and database development, data visualization, gaming, visual arts, graphic design, and creative writing.

Our approach was centered on making and collaborating, rather than merely discussing. After initial sessions for sharing information and generating ideas, we dedicated the rest of the day to prototyping. By the end, we had a number of promising prototypes that offered new ways to creatively communicate the issue of enforced disappearances.

In the next phase, we focused on turning some of these prototypes into fully developed projects. One of these was the Dictionary of the Disappeared—a digital memorialization project developed in partnership with Pikan Agency. In this project, we visualized 27 words and phrases that carry deeply personal meanings for the relatives of the disappeared, and shared them over a two-month social media campaign. Another idea, proposed by photographer Anıl Olcan, was to commemorate the disappeared by printing their portraits on small marble stones. We later developed this idea into an exhibition titled Public Secrets, which was hosted at the independent art space Karşı Sanat between May 10–21, 2019. Alongside Olcan’s collaborative piece, the exhibition featured works by Asya Leman, Hacer Foggo, Mert Kaya, and Hafıza Merkezi.

Beyond the outcomes themselves, the process of building long-term, cross-disciplinary collaboration between human rights work and the creative sector was itself a key priority for us. That’s why we continued to build on this experience—working to develop our method into a replicable model. In 2019, we launched a new project titled Human Rights and Creative Communications to expand and formalize this approach.