Bearing witness to authoritarianism and commoning through video activism and political film-making after the Gezi protests

This chapter examines the intersection of politics and the culture of visual media to delineate the ways in which activists/artists have coped with increasing authoritarianism in Turkey following the Gezi Park protests. The study relies on in-depth interviews and participant observation with video activists and film-makers as well as textual analysis of recent films and videos with an aim to capture the political voice and ongoing creative resistance in urban centres since 2013. By clustering recent videos and films together in the light of their aesthetics of protest against the Islamist and neoliberal authoritarianism of the AKP (Justice and Development Party), the chapter investigates how creative communities used ‘visual commons’ to engage in democracy, relate to politics in an increasingly authoritarian setting, and deal with urban issues.