Historical Sinop Prison was opened to the public not as a museum but rather as a historical site. History of the prison is already manipulated and processed, through TV series shot on site which disregard the reality of the space itself and through cheap “marketing” of those places of suffering and pain with the guidance of prison guards. The project “Wasted Happiness” in which the space is manipulated once again at the level of its meanings, is realized at covered and open spaces of the prison. A series of wedding photographs of the bride and groom are taken by a local wedding photographer at various places of the prison. In this prison, which is associated with exile and torture in Sinop’s collective memory, a contrasting physical and emotional relationship with the couple is constructed to question and reflect upon the real meanings of the space. Some of the photographs are designed to be exhibited both on the shop-window of the local photographer and in a room at an abandoned hotel in the city center. A photograph album, bearing the conventional aesthetics of such wedding memorabilia, is also prepared with a number of selected photos.
