Urban farmer and ecological advisor, currently working alongside the gardening family keeping one of Istanbul’s last historic bostans alive.
Bediz will be sharing the story of Piyalepaşa Garden, a working vegetable garden next to a 16th-century mosque in Istanbul, and one of the few remaining traces of a city that historians once called “a city of bostans.”
The garden survived decades of urbanisation and industrialisation, but in 2015, a municipal project threatened to turn it into a parking lot. In response, the Piyalepaşa Historic Garden Solidarity movement emerged, combining the right to the city, food sovereignty, and heritage preservation into a single, grounded struggle. The movement didn’t just defend the garden, it also farmed it.
Today the garden stands at a crossroads: its long functional past has come to an end, and its promising future has not yet fully begun.
📅 13 June | 15:00–17:00 CEST | Online & Free