Istanbuls Today
22 December 2022 - 17 September 2023, Pera Museum, Istanbul
Artists: Silva Bingaz, Osman Bozkurt, Ci Demi, Kıvılcım S. Güngörün, Ekin Özbiçer, Emin Özmen, Ahmet Sel, Ali Taptık, Kerem Uzel, Erdem Varol, Cansu Yıldıran
Writers: Yaşar Adnan Adanalı, Fırat Genç, Şebnem İşigüzel, Melisa Kesmez, Biray Kolluoğlu, N. Gamze Toksoy, Sibel Yardımcı
Curators: Refik Akyüz, Serdar Darendeliler
Istanbul is an exceptional city that has generated countless associations since the days when it was known as Constantinople—a city familiar to many and endlessly desired. A kind of “meta-city,” it contains different cities within itself, layered one upon another, generating a different meaning and imagining for everyone who encounters it. The past quarter of a century has been a particularly striking period in Istanbul’s history: the city has expanded dramatically in physical terms, undergone profound cultural change, and increasingly lost—or been made to lose—its connection with its past. 'Istanbuls Today' is a photography exhibition that brings together contemporary visual narratives of the multiple Istanbuls experienced simultaneously, offering a layered and innovative perspective on the present-day “meta-city” as it continues to change and transform.
'Istanbuls Today' brings together recent bodies of work by 11 photographers living in Istanbul, each working in very different styles and maintaining distinct, evolving relationships with the city. Presented together for the first time, these works offer a series of thematic cross-sections of Istanbul. They range from the city’s social and political dynamics to its precarious built environment and unsustainable urban landscapes; from migration, which has become increasingly visible over the past decade, to young people who have sought refuge in Istanbul in order to live without being labelled as “the other”; from Kanal Istanbul, one of the mega-projects that have multiplied across the city over the past quarter of a century and remains politically and ecologically contested, to practices through which artists reflect their personal relationships with the city in their photographs, as well as works that focus on the extraordinary—and at the same time utterly ordinary—strangeness encountered every day on Istanbul’s streets.
Curated by Refik Akyüz and Serdar Darendeliler, 'Istanbuls Today' approaches the city through direct and indirect narratives, offering a critical and creative visual reading of the present moment. At the same time, by bringing together photographers from different generations, with different experiences and approaches, the exhibition seeks to capture, within the framework of a single exhibition, something of the diversity of contemporary photographic practices in Istanbul.
The exhibition is further enriched by texts written for the catalogue by seven academics, researchers, and writers, excerpts from which are also presented in the exhibition. Through selections and presentations designed to provide an overview of the works as a whole, Istanbuls Today brings together a series of smaller exhibitions within a larger exhibition—distinct groupings that, when encountered alongside one another, form a meaningful whole. In this sense, the exhibition mirrors Istanbul itself: a “meta-city” containing different cities within its many layers, generating a different meaning and imagining for everyone.
Click here to view and download the original PDF of the editorial text for 'Istanbuls Today.'
Click here to view and download Fırat Genç’s text, “The City of Politics and Bodies in Motion,” in its original PDF format.
Click here to view and download Yaşar Adnan Adanalı’s text, “North of Northern Istanbul,” in its original PDF format.
Click here to explore 'Istanbuls Today' in 3D.
