When One Says “People First”, I Think of Art - Sunay Akın
We met with author, poet, playwright, museum founder and television programmer Sunay Akın at the Toy Museum in Kadıköy, Istanbul.
When we enter the street where the Istanbul Toy Museum is located, we are greeted at the door of the museum by three life-size giraffe statues that serve as streetlamps at night. Inspired by the giraffe statue that Mehmet Münif Pasha, an Ottoman intellectual who lived in the Ottoman period and served three terms as the Minister of Education, placed in the garden of his mansion in Erenköy, these statues are intended to motivate the moves to be made in the name of civilization and modernity in order to adopt and treasure Münif Pasha’s enlightened thoughts in the light of science.
The museum was created by renovating an old wooden mansion. This mansion, which Sunay Akın inherited from his family, is itself a historical artifact. When you enter the garden of this lovely mansion, you see two huge, magnificent toy soldiers standing guard at the gate. From the moment you enter the museum, you find yourself in a fairy tale world.
At the museum, where I was warmheartedly and genuinely welcomed, I had a warm conversation with Sunay Akın about literature, history, culture, values and the concept of “People First”. Come along and read this conversation to get to know him better...
Can we get to know you a little bit?
The word “literate” (able to read and write) is used for people who can do nothing, who have no mastery of anything. This is how I introduce myself, because I have only read and written since the age of 6. I have not done anything else.
The answer to the question “Who is Sunay Akın?” is, in the simplest terms, “Sunay Akın is a reader and a writer.” I have read and written. I have done nothing else. I still want to continue reading and writing.
The happiest moments in my life are the ones when I read and write. I perform these two actions simultaneously. When I sit in my library, I have books on my desk that I want to read. Next to them are my pieces of paper and pens. I read and I write. I write and I read. I alternate between these two actions.
How do you find time to write in a busy schedule?
As you begin to master the craft of writing, writing starts to take place in the brain. When I read books on my travels, I take notes in the margins of the books. These notes form the basis of my writing. I think about how I will construct my writing, and how I will make an introduction and conclusion. However I don’t put these stages on paper at that point and I wait for the overflowing drop. It naturally comes.
I don’t hold a single piece of writing in my brain. I work on several different writings. I think about which writing is better, which one thrills me more. Whichever one makes its presence felt, whichever one is aborning, I sit down and write that one.
How do you prepare for your oneman shows and speeches?
When I go on stage, I welcome the audience into the stories and texts written in the style of Sunay Akın. I am a literary figure on stage. In fact, drama, theater and one-man shows are also literature because they tell stories.
I am a man of literature. I taught literature at Müjdat Gezen Theater School for five years and at the same time I learned the art of theater as a student. I was a student and lecturer at the school and took theater lessons from great masters while teaching literature. My first stage experience was at Muammer Karaca Theater in Beyoğlu.
What was the first topic you tackled when you went on stage?
I don’t tell a single story on stage. As I do in my writings and books, I construct stories on stage that seem to be separate from each other but actually form a whole. This is the Sunay Akın style.
There have been people who later imitated my style and those who were influenced by it. But I am the one who started this style. There is a language, a stance that I put forward both in literature and on stage. This is my art. Whoever I am in my books, I am the same person on stage.
You mainly write research and documentary style articles. It feels like you are reading these types of articles as well. Do you also read novels and are you influenced by what you read?
I don’t discriminate between book genres. Everyone reads novels, so do I. But there are also essays, diaries, letters that nobody reads. I read them too. I even read things that no one else reads. I have been like this since I was a child. There is no encyclopedia that I haven’t read. Don’t ask me if one would read encyclopedias, I read them all.
I am an adventurer, an explorer. What I tell comes from my adventurous side. This is the spirit of discovery. It is this spirit that creates my texts, books and stage plays. And it is also accessing documents and information. I collect a lot of documents on every subject that I research and write about. I have a huge archive. I devoted an entire floor of the building, where we are doing the interview, as a library and archives, but it’s not enough. I have been collecting all my life. All the documents I have collected are in that 200 square meter apartment. It is actually a museum. There is a lot of information and many documents there, perhaps the only copy thereof, that no one can access and find. This is where I’m starting from when I write my books and perform my oneman plays on stage.
Which sources do you draw inspiration from when creating the content and concept of your museums?
For example, by establishing the Istanbul Toy Museum, I introduced the toy museum concept to Türkiye. Likewise, I also established the Fairy Tale Museum in Kartal, the Games Museum in Ataşehir and the Barış Manço Museum in Moda.
By opening a Cat Museum in Beşiktaş, I brought together cats from fairy tales, games, toys and comic books. That is, the cats from the world of imagination met under the same roof for the first time. This is how love for animals is passed on to future generations. If we love animals and want to protect nature, we should establish museums because the idea of conservation spreads to the society through the corridors of museums.
I am currently working on building the Kemal Sunal Museum. I have also been working on building a Snowman Museum for the past 10 years to inform children about the climate crisis. As I do in my writings, I build the museums in my mind first. My work on the Snowman Museum has also been going on for the last 10 years. Will it happen soon? Yes, it will. But when? I don’t know, because I have this feeling: There are some information and documents that I want to access, but I cannot answer the question of what they are. Because an artist acts with her/his feelings and emotions. I am collecting documents and information, but what separates me from a historian or a scientist is my feelings. I am actually after the story. They call me a historian wherever I go. No, I am not a historian, I am a man of letters. I know history, I use history. I also use geography, archaeology, anthropology, prehistory and etymology. But my whole purpose is the story; to dramatize it and turn it into a work of art.
Is the information that is turned into a story more memorable?
Professor Halil İnalcık, one of the most valuable scientists who come to mind when it comes to history, constantly emphasized this. The right way to communicate a piece of information is to make a story out of it. When our teachers enter the classroom, they should imagine themselves as if they were theater actors. And whatever the subject of the lesson is, or more precisely, whatever they want to convey to children, they should tell it through storytelling. This shows that when we are training our teachers in faculties of education, we should also explain drama to them. We should also teach storytelling. When that kind of teacher enters the classroom, the children overflow with joy because they are happy to see her/him again. When s/he leaves the classroom, they feel sad, they stare after her/him and long for the next time they will meet again.
This is how we need to convey knowledge and sensitivity to other people through the power of art. This is why museums are so important.
What would be your suggestions to an institution if they wanted to establish their own museum?
I would definitely recommend them to establish a museum for children and the children’s world. To give an example from the Istanbul Toy Museum, children don’t come here on their own; they come here with their parents. We are actually educating the family. It’s not just moms and dads; grandpas, grandmas, aunts, uncles are all together. That is to say, in this way, you convey to the whole society the sensitivity that you want to convey through the museum through children.
If you ask me, “If you were to establish a new museum, what would you establish?”, there is a subject I have been working on for 30 years. I would establish a toy museum again, but one that is unique in the world. A museum where I think about incorporating art in children’s games, dreams and toys. This museum is a place where all the toys are works of art. It is a place that shows how every moment of art from literature to theater, from music to cinema, has been shaped in the world of toys throughout history. I have been working on this for almost 30 years and have opened two exhibitions. The result is incredible; a collection ranging from the oldest 200-year-old toy pianos to Mozart’s and Van Gogh’s dolls. This museum allows visitors to witness the power of art together with 3 generations, from children to parents and grandparents. This museum is very important for me because there is no such example in the world yet. As a matter of fact, what I am after is thinking about something that doesn’t exist and doing something that hasn’t been done.
What does “People First” mean to you?
“People” is a very broad and abstract concept. First and foremost, we need to put the right story into it.
When one says “People First”, I think of art.
NASA sent a spacecraft into deep space. Why? So that if there were any beings out there, we could introduce “people” to them. What was to be put inside this vehicle? What would represent the “people”? That’s why NASA put works of art inside the spacecraft. Classical music, paintings, images, music... to show who we are. Art is what defines people.
Both in your speeches and in your writings, you emphasize the notions of culture and values. We also think that they are very important. In fact, culture and values constitute the foundation of everything, the foundation of a country, the foundation of our Republic. What would you like to tell us about this?
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s words “The foundation of the Republic of Türkiye is culture” are of great importance. If we determine our foundation as culture, we can produce the right education, health, environment and economic policies. Culture is the foundation of society and without the right foundation, progress in issues such as health, education, environment and economy is not possible. In a society that does not have culture as its foundation, health, education, environment, economy and other issues will always go down because the foundation is wrong.
To explain it with the example of an earthquake, for a building to be sturdy, its foundation must be laid in the right place and in the right way. Likewise, a country’s economy must be based on culture. For example, placing the crescent and star cited in the first article of the Flag Law on a fabric produced from the wool of Ankara’s Angora goat includes the symbolic values of culture. Culture is shaped by geography and history. For example, the Angora goat of Ankara does not grow on its own, it must be fed with the right plants. Then you need the hands to cut the wool and the factory to weave it. That is the economy. Culture is what makes the economy.
In conclusion, the foundation of the economy is culture, and this foundation must be formed in the right manner. Unfortunately, we face economic problems because our country has deficiencies in the foundation of culture. Culture is necessary to draw the circle of society correctly, and in this sense, we have deficiencies.
What do you think about values?
When you are guided by knowledge, your values are formed. Values are your guide on the path you follow, and they are constantly in progress. There is no stagnation here; value is a concept that is not a taboo, but it is developed by the individual who progresses on the path of reason. Therefore, if you set the foundation as culture, you actually build the structure in the light of knowledge. In this case, you keep your values alive.
Keeping the values alive does not mean consecrating things from the past; that would mean taboos and dogma. No, value is a different concept. When people develop themselves, when they are always open to the new on the path of knowledge, they create their values. It is the development of those values that creates the new after all.
As Yeşim Group, we care about the economic empowerment of women in the society. We establish kindergartens in all our locations so that our female employees can easily continue their work. Does your Toy Museum have toys that show us the lives of women and girls from different countries? What is the role of women in the success of the Toy Museum?
A toy is a witness reflecting the history of a civilization; it bears the traces of the period in which it was produced. When we look at toys to understand the social existence of women, we see Barbie dolls in particular. Barbie dolls have been criticized a lot. However, before Barbie dolls, female figures who gained economic independence and practiced various professions were quite rare in the toys. After the 1950s, especially after the Second World War, Barbie emerged as a toy representing different roles of women.
Toys reflect the mindset of adults about the world of children, and therefore toys show reflections of social, gender and even racial discrimination. For example, the black-skinned toys produced in the United States of America in the early 1900s reflect the racist perceptions of that period, and also include the values and discrimination in society.
The Istanbul Toy Museum is a concrete example of women’s success. The museum is managed successfully and in a balanced manner by women managers and employees. I founded the museum and that was all I did. It is the success of women that the museum has survived successfully for the past 18 years since its foundation. Thanks to our women, our museum succeeded in opening an exhibition in the Nurnberg Toy Museum, one of the most important museums in Europe, in the 100th anniversary of our Republic.
Thank you for this lovely conversation.
