‘Who are Ferit and Naikye Bayram?’ is an exhibition based on the research ‘Nation Formation’, prepared by Sezgin Boynik and Tevfik Rada at the house of Shani Efendi, within the scope of the third edition of Autostrada Biennale. 

Ferit Bayram (1888–1965) was one of the most influential Turkish leftist intellectuals in Yugoslavia, who, in 1947, was the first to employ the modern Turkish alphabet in the country. Bayram was a teacher, editor, writer, translator, and political activist. He lived almost all his life in Skopje, together with Nakiye Bayram, who, alongside Rosa Plaveva, was one of few women at the time to be involved in socialist causes in Macedonia and Kosovo. This research project is based on archival materials, new translations, and interviews, and presents Ferit and Nakiye Bayram and their peers in the context of the Balkan socialist tradition, torn between three great empires (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian), and countless small nations. It tells the story of the passionate causes and lives of activists theorizing in the field; figuring out, from scratch, a new model of organization that would be at the same time anti-imperialist, anti-nationalist, and anti-capitalist.

For more around the topic of the exhibition you can read at BLLOGU under the category Nation Formation: https://bllogu.lumbardhi.org/en/2021/01/14/who-is-ferit-bayram/