Portfolio Reviews II

4 June 2016, SALT Ulus, Ankara

Reviewers: Deniz Artun, Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt, Ersan Ocak, Metehan Özcan, Ahmet Sel, Yusuf Sevinçli
Participants: Aytaç Togay, Burak Ercan, Güneş Sönmez, İbrahim Karakütük, İpek Çınar, Mert Acar, Merve Bozcu, Murat Akbayrak, Naile Kaş, Özlem Eser, Selen Tuğrul, Senem Sinem, Serhat Kır, Sibel Acar, Yusuf Can Albayrak, Zuhal Azazi

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'Portfolio Reviews II', one of the discussion- and production-based photography programmes organised in collaboration between GAPO and SALT, was held at SALT Ulus in conjunction with the exhibition 'There Was a City Beyond the Sentence', which brought together works engaging with the city. The programme focused on the concept of the “city” and brought amateur and professional photographers working with different techniques together with editors, curators, artists, gallerists, and educators. The first edition of 'Portfolio Reviews' had been held at SALT Galata on 18 April 2015.

Twenty-four participants were selected following a portfolio-based review of applications from 50 photographers who submitted photographic series engaging with the city in a range of ways. These included documentary projects focusing on the details and dynamics that shape urban life, the problems cities face, and the people who give cities meaning; photographs centred on architectural elements that reflect the spirit—and lack of spirit—of cities, including interventions involving violent forms of urban transformation; street photography shaped by the surprises and encounters of everyday life; visual documents that consider personal experiences together with the places in which they occur; projects that bring the present into dialogue with memory through archival and found materials; and fictional images of imagined cities. The 24 selected participants met individually with three reviewers for 20-minute sessions, with the reviewers assigned according to their stated preferences.