Giving Memory a Place: Open Call for the 5 June Memorial Square
Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality has launched an open call for the “5 June Memorial Square and Commemorative Site Concept and Design Project”, seeking proposals for a space that will honour those who lost their lives in the attack at İstasyon Square on 5 June 2015 and embody the city’s collective memory and commitment to peace. Artists are invited to submit bold and creative design proposals by 25 September 2026.
Through its “Open Call for the 5 June Memorial Square and Commemorative Site Concept and Design Project”, Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality’s Department of Culture, Arts and Social Affairs seeks to give physical form to the city’s collective memory. The project will create a memorial and redesign the square to honour those who lost their lives in the attack at Diyarbakır İstasyon Square ahead of the general election on 5 June 2015, while giving expression to collective memory and the commitment to peace.
A City of Memory between Past and Future
The open-call text underlines that cities are more than their squares, streets and buildings: they also carry the traces of lived experience, bear witness to the past and hold stories that risk fading from memory.
Seen in this light, the city becomes a space of memory connecting past and future. The design project seeks to give visible form to the painful events and experiences that have left their mark on the city’s collective memory.
Keeping Collective Memory Alive
The project seeks to give spatial and aesthetic expression to the continuity of both individual and collective memory. By ensuring that events experienced in the city at different times, particularly those of 5 June, are not forgotten, the project aims to help sustain the city’s collective memory.
The project envisages memorial and public-space designs that bring acts of commemoration and remembrance into the public realm, transforming an engagement with the past into both a spatial and aesthetic experience.
The Metropolitan Municipality has invited artists to put forward bold and creative design proposals capable of giving expression to the city’s collective memory.
Proposals to Be Assessed by an Independent Jury
Submissions received through the open call will be assessed by an independent jury of experts in the field. The selected memorial sculpture is planned to be displayed at a location to be determined within the city.
Deadline for Submissions: 25 September
Submissions for the “5 June Memorial Square and Commemorative Site Concept and Design Project” will be accepted until 25 September 2026. Designs can be submitted through the following form:
