Kurkut

  2017,
  100 pages book

Kemal Kurkut, a music student at the age of 23, was murdered by the police at the area entrance of
the Newroz celebration in Amed (Diyarbakir- Turkey). Immediately afterwards all the television channels broadcasted breaking news that the police has killed a suicide bomber trying to enter the celebration
area. Journalist Abdurrahman Gök photographed the whole incident when Kurkut was shot. When the
photos were given to the media, the police made an informal statement that Kurkut was not a suicide
bomber, but a terrorist carrying the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) flag, therefore he was shot. When the
flag was not found, the police claimed that he had attacked them with a knife. At the end the government
silenced the media about Kurkut’s case, and the investigation about his case ended in confidentiality
order. Kurkut was body searched by the police, his clothes were removed, with no proof of bombs on him
and no proof of him attacking the police.

The question still remains: Why was Kemal Kurkut killed?

This book is the story of Kemal Kurkut, the story that some of us don’t want to forget and some of us
don’t want to know. The photo taken a few seconds before he was killed, was converted into a font
re-writing his forbidden story. A hundred editions of the book was put in public libraries as a guerrilla
action by me. Through finding the name KURKUT on the back of the book, this intervention gives the
possibility for people to encounter with the book in libraries and learn about Kurkut’s real story. It reminds
us of the censored stories of children and youth murdered by the state.