As it celebrates its 10th anniversary Istanbul Modern is exploring the history of visual art in Turkey and in the surrounding region. From January to June, Neighbours examined contemporary art in Turkey and neighbouring countries with close historical, political and/or cultural ties. The latest exhibition focuses on the relationship between visual art and music.  

Plurivocality is curated by Çelenk Bafra and Levent Çalıkoğlu, the museum’s chief curator, and brings together paintings, sculptures, videos and installations by 18 important contemporary artists in Turkey. As you can imagine, the exhibition is a noisy affair, with sounds and music emanating from every corner. But the organisers have managed to isolate parts of the large exhibition area and provide separate rooms where the more raucous videos and installations can be properly appreciated. 

A prelude to the show is ‘Repertoire’, really a mini exhibition in itself. It explores the role of music and the visual arts from the late Ottoman era through the early years of the Republic years up to the 1980s, with a timeline of prominent artists and composers, the last caliph Abdülmecid’s famous painting ‘Elegy’, a piano belonging to the most renowned female Turkish composer Leyla (Saz) Hanım(above) and a video of Semiha Berksoy, one of Turkey’s first opera singers, reciting Nazım Hikmet’s 1957 poem Son Otobüs (The Last Bus).

Sarkis, ‘The Scream of the Sainte Sophie’, 2011, oil on tambour, 47 x 8 cm, courtesy of the artist and Gallery Nathalie Obadia

Above the doorway into the main exhibition space, a work by Sarkis is the first part of the conceptual artist's three-part installation paying tribute to Edvard Munch’s venerable painting ‘The Scream’. The work holds a special significance for Sarkis – he took up painting after seeing a reproduction of the ‘The Scream’ in Istanbul in the 1950s. In the series of paintings inside, Sarkis uses colours from Munch’s work to create replicas of the screaming face on paper. But in the The Scream of Sainte Sophie, he virtually ‘performed the scream’ – as he applied the oil paint to a tambourine – the strokes made small sounds not dissimilar to tiny screams.

Hussein Chalayan, ‘I am Sad Leyla’, 2010, sculpture, 173 x 45 x 45 cm, two-channel video installation, colour with sound, 7’ 17”, courtesy of the artist and Galerist

The artist and fashion designer extraordinaire Hussein Chalayan (profiled in Cornucopia 20) lends two works to the exhibition. The above centres on music as a cultural form. The multi-layered installation features a sculpture of the Turkish pop singer Sertab Erener, whose lips digitally appear to be moving. Unusually for her, she performs a classical Turkish song, ‘Üzgünüm Leyla’ (‘I am Sad Leyla’), which we can hear through the speakers. In the background, we see a video of an orchestra playing traditional instruments. Erener wears a fashionable costume designed by Chalayan. With all these elements combined, the artist aims to reflect on the influences of diverse cultures and identities on both the creation process and the performance of a musical composition. I think it is a marvellous and ambitious work.

Füsun Onur, ‘Prelude’, 2000, installation, courtesy of the artist, photo: from the archives of Yapı Kredi Cultural Activities Arts and Publishing

The veteran artist Füsun Onur (who currently has an excellent retrospective exhibition at ARTER; read more here) offers a work that is both simple and abstract. The notion of rhythm is a major theme running through Onur’s oeuvre and this example comes from a series in which Onur uses domestic items to comment on notes and composition. ‘The raw materials of music are notes,' she says. 'Alone, these don’t mean anything. But, when arranged with rhythm, they become disciplined and gain significance, turning into so-called tonal extensions. My raw materials are no different than that of visual arts: square, rectangle, dot, line, big forms, small forms – a rhythmic extension of forms. Taking everyday materials, I wanted to discipline them and give them a meaning they did not possess before.’

:mentalKLINIK, ‘French Kiss’, 2014, double French horn, lacquered brass body, rose brass, lead pipe, four mechanical-link tapered rotary valves, engraved valve caps, geyer wrap, 81 x 54 x 31 cm, courtesy of the artists

The Istanbul artist duo :mentalKLINIK, known for their reactionary art, installed double French horns immitating the shape of a snail’s shell. The title is a wordplay both on the ‘Frenchness’ of horns and on the French kiss – the lip-to-lip horns in this work share an intimate closeness. Historically used as a communication device due to its ability to produce powerful sounds, in this instance, the artists place the instruments so close together that they can’t produce any sound. The intimate nature of human encounters and the processes of communication and interaction are thus highlighted.

Ferhat Özgür, ‘I Can Sing’, 2008, video, colour with sound, 7’, courtesy of the artist

In his emotive video, Ferhat Özgür employs an iconic song to comment on a country caught between modernisation and tradition, between Islamic identity and Western culture. The video, shot in Ankara, depicts an Anatolian woman standing among the debris of a modern housing development. In traditional attire, the woman moves her lips as if singing, but instead a man’s voice is heard singing ‘Hallelujah’ by the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Apart from its references to Christianity, ‘Hallelujah’ is an everyday exclamation used in Western society to express joy and gratitude. By placing the female figure in contrast with the male voice and the traditional attire in contrast with western popular music, set against a backdrop of urban transformation, Özgür’s video presents conflicting feelings of grief and joy and of approval and resistance in the face of change.

Semiha Berksoy, ‘Fidelio (Ludwig Van Beethoven)’, 1975, oil on hardboard, 244 x 122 cm, Semiha Berksoy Opera Foundation Collection

A whole room is reserved for the late opera singer Semiha Berksoy. A biographical wall outlining the artist’s music and art career is presented alongside five of Berksoy’s oil paintings. Produced between 1975 and 1987, these paintings draw their titles and inspiration from masterpieces of opera performed by Berksoy herself. The above shows the painting inspired by Beethoven’s only opera ‘Fidelio’. Arias sung by the artist blare from the speakers, allowing audiences to fully appreciate Berksoy’s talents. The room attempts to show, as summarised by the curator of this section, Rosa Martinez, Berksoy's ‘life as a work of art’.

The exhibition runs until November 27, 2014.

Main image shows a part of Merve Şendil's 'The Underscore Project'.

To commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli Campaign, and more widely the First World War, any number of projects have been initiated, including exhibitions, conferences, publications and films. This Anzac Day, a number of Australian and New Zealand artists travelled to Gallipoli to paint landscapes for a centenary exhibition entitled My Friend the Enemy. A World War I conference was held at Bilgi University in April. Dr Sean McMeekin, an American historian who lectures at Koç University, launched his book 1914: Countdown to War. Alphan Eşeli’s World War I drama The Long Way Home enjoyed a theatrical release and festival success. This month, the Massey University Wellington hosts a conference that will examine and discuss the individuals, identities and leaderships during the war. There is a plethora of travelling exhibitions in Australia, including one by the Australian War Memorial which features 39 photographs taken by Sir Charles Ryan on the Gallipoli peninsula, where he served as a medic.

Still from ‘The Water Diviner’

The most ambitious of the anniversary projects is a film by the New Zealand-born (although claimed by Australians) actor and director Russell Crowe. Known as ‘Rusty’ to his fans, Crowe spent several weeks in February–March this year shooting The Water Diviner in the 5,000 year-old town of Kayaköy, nestled against the Taurus Mountains in southwest Turkey (with a day or two in Istanbul). Besides donning the director’s hat for the first time, Crowe also stars as the lead character, Connor, a man searching for his missing sons, who had disappeared during the Battle of Gallipoli. The Ukrainian-French actress Olga Kurylenko joins is his love interest and Crowe hired over 100 locals as extras as well as two important Turkish actors for supporting roles: the veteran actor Yılmaz Erdoğan stars as Major Hasan and Cem Yılmaz stars as Jemal.

Still from ‘The Water Diviner’

I must admit that when I heard about this film, I dismissed it as yet another blockbuster that would most likely skew historical facts and throw in a grandiose love story to mar anything that remotely had a chance of making the film poignant. But after watching the below featurette, I have changed my mind. Sure, the love story is still there, but Crowe seems to have taken a very personal approach and tried to make a film that is both illuminating and touching. Most interestingly, it considers both the Australian/New Zealand and the Turkish perspectives. The script is written by the Melbourne television writing duo Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios, known for some local gems, and the acting looks formidable. The cinematography also does not disappoint. We will only truly know when the film is out, but I am no longer so cynical.

The film is anticipated for release late this year in Australia and in Europe and Turkey early to mid next year. Festival hype is high.

The Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Works of the Divine Augustus) in the sadly neglected Temple of Augustus in Ankara (photographed by John Henry Haynes in 1884).

THE ANNIVERSARY OF A COLOSSUS

There are two classic images of Augustus from later ages. You may remember him as the grey, calculating, uncharismatic but inexorably successful young politician of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, or perhaps as the huge, dominating, slightly terrifying but still avuncular figure in the early episodes of the BBC’s classic 1970s TV serialisation of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius. Brian Blessed, the actor who played him, brought Augustus to life as an urbane but dangerous, deliberately unfathomable, yet somehow ultimately benign. patriarch. I am inclined to think that it was Robert Graves and Brian Blessed, who both drew on Suetonius’s portrait of Augustus, even down to his daily expressions such as ‘Quick as boiled asparagus’, that came closest to the truth.

Either way Rome’s first emperor was a colossus and this month sees the 2000th anniversary of his death. One might think Augustus is a largely remote and irrelevant figure, but he is deeply etched into the software of Western civilisation: the very name of this month still commemorates him.

Augustus was the first Roman emperor, though he called himself ‘Princeps’ or ‘first citizen’ and was in reality a military dictator, using control of the army to bend the institutions of the Roman Republic, notably the Senate, to his will. Born Octavius, growing later to be Octavian, he was the great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar. When Caesar was murdered in 44BC Octavian was propelled  into a frontline position in politics. After a decade and a half of internecine civil wars, Octavian was sole ruler of the empire by 27BC, and reigned peacefully for 41 years until his death in 14AD on August 19. As sole ruler he took on the name 'Augustus' we know him by today.

During that time he enlarged the Roman Empire massively, taking in countries such as Egypt (after his defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra) and pushing up the frontier from the Adriatic coast to the interior of Austria and Hungary. He would probably have ensured that most of Germany became Roman, too, if his legions had not been destroyed by Arminius in the Teutoberg Forest in 9AD. The Roman cities that were growing up north and east of the Rhine died for ever. The defeat cost Rome three legions and perhaps set the stage for the eventual destruction of the Western Roman Empire four and a half centuries later by Germanic tribes. Augustus is said to have cried out frequently 'Publius Quinctilius Varus, give me back my three legions!' – Varus being the general who had led the Roman armies into a German ambush.

But by most standards Augustus’s reign was a golden age for the Western world, the one in which Classical civilisation flowered and spread from end to end of Europe. Augustus said that he had found Rome brick and left it marble, and the architectural splendour of the early empire is largely his work. He claimed to have spent 600 million silver denarii on public works during his reign. His work reached its zenith in Rome but spread by osmosis across the empire whose cities put up buildings similar to those of the capital.

Literature also flourished. The  poets of his age, Virgil and Horace and Ovid, ensured that Roman literature was never forgotten. 

Augustus was conscious of his achievements and wrote an account of his works in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (The Works of the Divine Augustus), which was set on a bronze wall plate in the Senate in Rome but copied across the Empire in Latin and sometimes Greek. The best surviving texts are in that sadly neglected monument, the Temple of August in Ankara, and temples in Pisidian Antioch and Apollonia. Was the Res Gestae boastfulness or intimidation? Or public relations, helping make people in distant provinces aware of their Roman identity? 

Like many great rulers, however, there was one problem which Augustus did not master. He married three times producing daughters but no sons. He had grandsons but the succession passed to Tiberius, the surviving son of his third wife, Livia, by a previous marriage. What happened? Writers from Suetonius to Robert Graves have portrayed Livia as a wicked woman, adept at eliminating rivals and obsessed with ensuring the succession of her morose and unpleasant son. Several ancient writers, including Tacitus, the greatest historian Roman produced, suggest that Augustus was killed by Livia using poison. We don’t have the evidence but several of the earlier heirs-apparent who predeceased their grandfather look as if they might have made better emperors than Tiberius did. For the cruelty and streak of insanity which we associate with late Roman Emperors from that family seems to have been lacking in the sunnily self-assured Augustus and perhaps would have been missing in his direct line too.

Despite the shortcomings and horrific qualities of  Augustus’s successors, the empire survived and grew for four more centuries and was the template for all subsequent European civilisation. In the 18th century, Gibbon believed it had been the zenith of humanity and even from the perspective of our a technological civilisation, it  still seems marvelous in many ways.

Poisoned or not, the last few weeks of Augustus’s life seem to have been happy ones. And he remained pleased with his achievements. His last words on his deathbed are said to have been: 'Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit!' Even after 2000 years, perhaps we should.

David Barchard's book of Ottoman biographies, Ottoman Lives, is to be published in 2015.

THE TEMPLE OF AUGUSTUS, ANKARA, 1884

From the pages of John Henry Haynes, A Photographer and Archaeologist in the Ottoman Empire 1881–1900, by Rober G Ousterhout

John Henry Haynes' 1884 view shows the entrance to the first-century BC Temple of Augustus in Ankara, with the 15th-century Hacı Bayram Mosque built against its flank. 

The lateral façade of the temple is inscribed with the text of the ‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti’, added after his death on 14AD. The inscription has greatly deteriorated since Haynes’s day

For Robert G Ousterhout's account of Haynes’s career, with images that include the earliest photographs of Cappadocia, see John Henry Haynes, Photographer and Archaeologist in the Ottoman Empire, available from cornucopia.net, price £19.50, post-free to subscribers

Cornucopia 47 included a special 26-page report on historic Ankara: Fly in the Face of Fashion, by Patricia Daunt, with photographs by Fritz von der Schulenburg

Travel notes The Divan Çukurhan is Cornucopia's recommended hotel in Ankara and can be booked through Cornucopia Hotel Collection

We were sad to hear news that a Beşiktaş – well, an Istanbul really – institution faces possible closure. Pando Kaymak, a favourite breakfast spot that makes its venerable kaymak (clotted cream) on premises has been given an eviction notice, as reported by Culinary Backstreets on Friday. The café, which is featured in our ‘The Sultan’s New City’ guide in Cornucopia 51 and which is the usual breakfast spot for the author Health Lowry, has apparently been given until August 15 to vacate. The café is operated by the 90-plus year old Pandelli Shestakof and his wife, and Pando Amca, as he is affectionately known by the neighbourhood’s locals, has been sitting outside his blue-washed café with jars of honey and fresh eggs adorning its window and welcoming customers for over 50 years (he took over from his father who has owned the shop since 1895, by Culinary Backstreet’s accounts).

The famous kaymak at Pando Kaymak (photo: Istanbul Eats)

Culinary Backstreets also reported that the reason for the eviction is that Pando’s landlord wants to replace the café with yet another kiosk that sells gum, cigarettes, newspapers and other bibs and bobs. In his column two days ago in Today’s Zaman, Berk Çektir, a lawyer and a journalist, says that the eviction is justified due to “a revised code of obligations that allows the landlord to ask the tenant to evict the premises if the rental agreement has surpassed ten years”. So instead of valuing a long-term tenant (and one that has been there for a rumoured 120 years), the landlord decides to evict him. That’s loyalty for you. After receiving the news, Çektir immediately visited Pando and is now trying to find out whether Pando has any legal rights to stay on premises. He thinks the best solution is for the landlord to “cooperate with Pando to preserve cultural heritage” and enlisting the help of a vakıf (foundation) that cares about food and cultural heritage. Culinary Backstreets also reports that Pando family’s main concern is to save the 19th-century shopfront from destruction rather than Pando’s business itself.

Harvard student and an expert in Ottoman agricultural practices, Aleksandar Sopov, who has spent last summer and is spending this summer fighting the good fight for the preservation of the Yedikule bostans shared this gem on his Facebook page: ‘You will not read in the Culinary Backstreets article that Pando and his wife Yovana still speak the dialect spoken in the Macedonian village which their ancestors abandoned in the 19th century. Running away from economic hardships and exploitation, thousands of Macedonians settled in Istanbul at the end of the 19th century to work as gardeners, dairy-producers and bakers; cheap labour for a growing city that had to be fed. The descendants of those people are forced to leave again. Deep in that delicious clotted cream covered in honey there is so much bitterness.’ He added a #savepando tag which already has numerous retweets on Twitter. Well said, Aleks. If the eviction happens, it will be ever so sad. We can get a pack of gum or a newspaper at any old newsstand, but Pando’s kaymak is unparalleled. Isn’t it worth saving?

Main image source: mimarizm.com

We are eagerly awaiting the ‘Images of the Other: Istanbul, Vienna, Venice’ conference, to be held between September 2 and 4. The conference will bring together scholars, architects, photographers, writers, artists and filmmakers exploring a range of images of in the aforementioned cities, through music, film, photography, poetry, video games, popular song, the media and writing.

Curated and directed by Veronika Bernard from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and Serhan Oksay, and hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum Istanbul in Yeniköy, the conference is part of a larger interdisciplinary project focusing on cultural encounters, poverty and migration.

The programme has been announced and looks very good. Sessions include ‘The Relativity of a Myth’, ‘The City’s Representations in the Arts, Media and Literature’, ‘Istanbul and Vienna – Representation in-between the Self and the Other’, ‘Vienna – A Myth and its Destruction’, ‘Istanbul, Vienna and Venice – The Diversity of Perception’ and ‘Istanbul and Venice – Media-Guided Perception’. The list of local and international speakers likewise looks impressive.

To register, please email: images-1@gmx.at. The conference will be conducted in English.

Four publications by Veronika Bernard are available from the Images Project for €29.90 each: Film as Spaces of Cultural Encounter (2011), Images of the Poor (2012), Images of the City (2013) and Images of the City: Album. To order, please email Veronika.Bernard@uibk.ac.at.

Some exciting news from the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) last week, as it announced that the artist Sarkis will be representing Turkey at next year’s la Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale).

Last year, the video artist Ali Kazma presented his work Resistance (to be showcased at ARTER next spring) at the Turkish Pavilion and next year, a new installation by Sarkis will be displayed at a dedicated new location at the Arsenale, which has been secured by the IKSV for the next 20 years.

The Turkish Pavilion will be curated by Defne Ayas, the director and curator at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, but what the installation will actually be is so far shrouded in mystery. Knowing Sarkis, the daddy of installation art, it will be highly conceptual and ignite fervent conversations and debates. Ayas, whose interests include tracing what remains of the people, places and cultures that were once part of the Ottoman Empire (she founded and co-curates the Blind Dates Project), will hopefully give Sarkis and his new work justice.

Sarkis, ‘Rainbow’ (photo: Sarkis)

Sarkis Zabunyan (known simply as ‘Sarkis’), who had his first exhibition in Istanbul in 1960, is an iconic Turkish artist. He has lived in Paris since 1964 but remains an important fixture in the contemporary art scene in Turkey. He has participated in the first, second and tenth Istanbul Biennials, and exhibited at many important art institutions worldwide. His recent shows in Istanbul have included Twins at Galeri Mana in May 2013, followed by Rainbow in September and the Interpretation of Cage / Ryoanji at ARTER in November 2013. Currently, his works are displayed as part of the Plurivocality exhibition at the Istanbul Modern and the Common Ground: Earth exhibition at the Borusan Contemporary.

The 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia, will be held between May 9 and November 22, 2015.

Earlier this month, excavations began in Kyzikos, a 2,500-year-old city in Balıkesir, in northwest Turkey. The prize in sight? A relief of Hadrian. Speaking to Hürriyet Daily News last week, the head of the excavations and an Associate Professor at the Archaeology Department at Atatürk University, Nurettin Koçhan, said that his excavations team will be exploring the area around the site where a Corinthian-style column from the Temple of Hadrian (the one at Ephesus) was unearthed last year. Dating from the Roman period and measuring 2.5 metres in height, Koçhan described it as the ‘biggest and most elegant Corinth column made during the Roman Empire’.

‘We have started excavations in the area where we found the column heading last year. This is the most important finding here in the last two years and one of the highest columns from the Roman era. An ancient source tells of a relief of Hadrian in the temple area. If it’s right, I believe we can find its remains,’ Koçhan told Hürriyet Daily News.

A giant statue of Emperor Hadrian, one the finest of its kind, was unearthed by Professor Marc Waelken in the ruins of the Imperial Baths of Sagalassos in 2007, as detailed in Cornucopia 48.

Photo shows Associate Professor Koçhan and the Corinthian column discovered last autumn in Kyzikos (photo: archeolog-home.com).

This year, which commemorates the centenary of the birth of Turkish cinema, has thankfully been a very successful one for Turkey’s film industry. The biggest news of the year has been that Nuri Bilge Ceylan took the Palme D’Or at Cannes for his three-hour-plus odyssey The Winter’s Sleep (currently in cinemas). And other Turkish films continue to do well at festivals, with Erol Mintaş’s Song of my Mother – a touching story of an elderly Kurdish woman yearning to return to her village in east Turkey – winning best picture at the 20th Sarajevo Film Festival just a few days ago. Tomorrow the Venice International Film Festival opens with two Turkish films in the running for the prestigious Gold Lion. And next month Istanbul Modern stages an exhibition paying tribute to 100 years of Turkish cinema.         

Turkish documentaries too are gathering attention. Cem Kaya’s Remake, Remix, RipOff premiered earlier this month at the Locarno Film Festival and is attracting a lot of heat internationally. The venerable film magazine Variety describes it as ‘a raucous, rowdy and regrettably scatter-brain… side-splitting essay film’.

Kaya spent seven years researching the golden age of Turkish cinema, known as yesilçam. In the 1960s and 1970s, Turkey was one of the biggest producers of film in the world but didn’t have enough fresh material to pump out original movies, with the result that these decades became known as the ‘heyday of shameless exploitation movies’. Rather than writing new content, screenwriters and directors copied scripts and remade films made elsewhere. Name any Hollywood blockbuster and a Turkish version probably exists: Rocky (Kara Simsek), Rambo (Korkusuz), Star Trek (Omer the Tourist Travels to Space) and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (Badi), to name but a few. It is this ‘copy culture’ that Kaya focuses on in his film. Full of interviews with academics and ex-industry players, and clips from the often hilarious Turkish remakes, Remake, Remix, RipOff is two hours of sensory overload on a fascinating subject. 

Link to the trailer.

‘There were no opportunities for genetic engineers in Turkey when I graduated,’ says Pelin, stirring sugar into her tea. We are having dinner at her place in Oxford on one of my recent visits there. ‘That’s why I left immediately after finishing my first degree. I wanted to do my PhD in the UK so I could find a job here also.’ Her partner, Yusuf, nods his head. ‘I dropped out halfway through my biology degree as I knew I had no future with it in Turkey,’ he says. He came to Oxford in early 2007 and took up a career in IT. ‘I wanted to learn English and the UK is the best place for it. Plus, America, Canada and Australia are just too far away.’ Yusuf admits that the prospect of earning more money also influenced his decision to leave Turkey. 'Also I have more freedom here. Rules work fine for me,’ he says and we all laugh. ‘Of course, I do have plans to go back to Turkey, but not until I’m in my mid -40s.’

Turkey has been battling with a brain drain since the mid-1960s when many skilled people emigrated following the 1960 military coup d’état, which left people feeling uncertain about the country’s political stability. By the 1990s and 2000s it had become popular for students studying overseas to remain abroad, mainly because of better economic opportunities. In 2000 the Turkish government formed a special task force to investigate the brain-drain problem, but that didn’t seem to stop Turkish youth moving overseas to study – and staying on.

In June 2012 Today’s Zaman reported that ‘with the country’s 102 state and 75 private universities unable to cater to Turkey’s vast and ambitious young population, students are increasingly looking elsewhere for their higher education’. Only 30 percent were admitted to a domestic university that year – a major reason for students choosing to migrate overseas. While student numbers grew, Turkish universities did not, with the result that in 2010–11 there were over 22,383 Turkish students enrolled in formal education overseas, compared with 20,400 in 2002, according to a Ministry of National Education report.

But could this trend be reversing, as a result of Turkey’s economic boom over the last few years? It appears there is a new breed of educated young Turks returning to their homeland to cash in. And new private universities seem to be popping up every day in the big cities, especially Istanbul, offering more and more students the chance to complete their studies in Turkey.

Last October, Hürriyet Daily News ran an article on how the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK)’s research fellowship programme, aiming to bring home Turks living abroad, had seen a significant spike in numbers in 2013. The former minister of science, industry and technology, Nihat Ergün, said in October that 117 researchers had applied for the programme in the first nine months of 2013 – a five-fold increase over the past five years. TÜBITAK’s initiative offers researchers scholarships of TL3,250 per month for two years, and for research conducted in Turkey recipients can be awarded up to TL25,000.

Al-Monitor reported in March that the Turkish government – after a report ranked Turkey sixth in a list of foreign citizens obtaining US doctorates between 2002–12 – is keen to bring back its educated students and is looking into what incentives in can offer. Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has also recently launched a ‘reverse brain drain’ project.

And it’s not just about Turks returning to their homeland. Those born overseas but with Turkish roots are becoming increasingly attracted by Turkey as well. Germany – with approximately three million citizens of Turkish origin – is one country seeing this trend. ‘Turkey is no longer willing to lose its qualified labour to Germany and is instead calling for a reverse brain gain,’ it was reported in France24 last year. Meanwhile, Flanders Today stated in November that an increasing number of ‘young people with Turkish roots want to leave Flanders and return to the native country of their parents.' The sociologists Zeynep Balcı and Joris Michielsen, from the University of Antwerp, interviewed 27 people in their 20s and 30s about to leave for Turkey or already living there. ‘But there were many more young Turks who wanted to talk to us,’ said the Balcı and Michielsen. ‘These are not isolated cases.’

So these days it seems it is no longer a lack of universities or job opportunities that is persuading the young and educated to leave Turkey. Perhaps one reason is the country’s increasingly authoritarian government. In April, SES Türkiye reported that ‘popular websites like Ekşi Sözlük may move operations abroad, [which in turn] raises concerns about a brain drain in the wake of recently enacted internet restrictions.’ The founder of Ekşi Sözlük, Sedat Kapanoglu, said it would be ‘ridiculous’ to stay in Turkey after the Internet Law 5651 was enacted. And the head of the Alternative Informatics Association, Ali Riza Keles, told SES Türkiye that other online companies may choose to leave the country in the future.

The Turkish blogger and political scientist Binnaz Saktanber wrote on her CNN blog earlier this year that when she was leaving New York after completing graduate school to go back to Turkey two years ago, ‘[it] did not seem to be such a gloomy option. The buzz was that it had become the 16th biggest economy in the world, with a dynamic, young workforce.’ But things have got worse. ‘I saw Erdoğan’s unbearable authoritarianism, his denigrating and polarising stance, a discriminatory attitude towards anyone who is not a Sunni Muslim or an ethnic Turk and no respect to anyone who is not 100% pro his AKP party. As for my beautiful Istanbul, the city I dreamed of whenever I missed home, I saw an utter lack of sustainable urban development.' Although the Gezi protests gave Saktanber renewed hope for the country’s collective consciousness, she admits that she does, from time to time, ask herself whether she should leave Turkey again.

A friend of mine, Kurt, who left Turkey in 1996 to study, returned to his home country three years ago. A graduate in chemistry and biochemistry from Trinity College, Connecticut, he told me he loved living in the States but thought it was time to return for a number of reasons: complacency settling in, a busted post-housing-market-crash economy and thus a lack of jobs in his field, wanting to re-Turkify and familiarise himself with his family, to spend his adult years in his own nation state, and to ‘take a cold culture shower’. But Kurt does recognise the problems in his homeland and acknowledges that he might return to the US ‘if Erdoğan goes berserk and 1984 on us. That, or a big earthquake destroys Istanbul...’

Another friend, Melissa, left Istanbul just weeks ago to return to the UK. She had been born in the UK to a Turkish mother and an English father, and after completing her degree in makeup artistry in 2010, followed by a year’s work experience, she decided to go and live in Istanbul. ‘I always wanted to experience living in a different country, and because of my Turkish roots I was curious about living there. Also opportunities within my industry seemed plentiful in Istanbul. I heard not only that there would be a lot of work but that those with a makeup qualification were held in high regard, especially those coming from a Western country.’ But a little over two years later she has had enough. ‘I never planned on living in Turkey permanently, but also I found it very difficult to adjust and to accept the cultural and political norms, especially the separation between the genders, the disregard for law and regulations, the lack of politeness.’ Although Melissa thinks there will be fewer opportunities in her industry in the UK, she feels her prospects in general are better there: higher pay, reliable, a higher level of professionalism. ‘I feel I have learned a lot living in Turkey, but I also feel that Turkey is best appreciated by just visiting, when you can take in the lovely scenery, soak up the nice weather and eat the delicious food, but not have to deal with the tedious protocols and the system.’

Economic development is only one piece in the puzzle of how a country grows. If things continue as they are – and who knows what Erdoğan has in store for us now that he’s president – Turkey may witness something I call a ‘reverse-reverse brain drain’. That is, young Turkish professionals returning home after study abroad, then leaving again after seeing the way their homeland is regressing.

Main image shows students relaxing at Bilgi University, one of Turkey's largest private universities (source: bilgi.edu.tr)

Submissions are not invited for the next Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival. The fifth edition of the festival, celebrating experimental film and moving-image art, will take place between April 16 and 19, 2015. This year’s theme is ‘Spiritus Mundi’, a historical term for ‘world soul’ or ‘spirit of the world’. The festival organisers say: ‘This is perhaps something we all unwittingly search for, denoting a spirit of inquiry into the deep nature of substance, of film, of luminosity and shadow, of meaning and life. It relates to a spirit of universality and internationalism – that which underlies both our common humanity and the structures of all natural phenomena. It means our cultural-political Zeitgeist too, the ‘spirit of the age’, and every bit as ghostly, mutable and ephemeral.’

The festival takes place in the former industrial mill town of Hawick in Scotland (where Cornucopia has one of its offices) and this year's edition included 12 features by emerging filmmakers and artists, a filmmaking symposium, short-film screenings, moving-image installations, a number of live performances, and the German director Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s film, Taşkafa: Stories of the Street – about the street dogs of Istanbul – made its UK debut. The festival had received over 600 entries of feature films, video art and installations and the director, Richard Ashrowan, told Tim Cornwell that they would like to see more Turkish work in future editions.

Submissions can be of short films, feature films, installations and expanded cinema events (both digital and 16/35mm) from anywhere around the world. The festival aims to celebrate a diverse range of works: from the visually experimental, quietly poetic, formally radical, psycho-geographical, politically activist, culturally subversive, psycho-spiritual, to the alchemically volatile, the underground and the bizarre. The festival’s website warns that conventional or commercial-style narrative dramas, animations and documentaries are less likely to be successful – unless truly original in form and content.

Closing date for submissions is November 30, 2014. Click here for the application form.

Main image shows the Quay Brothers’ film ‘Unmistaken Hands’, shown at this year's festival. 

A fascinating conference took place this week exploring how cities are perceived through imagery. Scholars, architects, photographers, writers, artists and film-makers convened in a spacious and acoustically pleasing room at the sumptuous Austro-Hungarian embassy in Yeniköy, on the European shore of the Bosphorus. The conference, entitled ‘Images of the Other’, was organised by Veronika Bernard of Innsbruck University, the photographer Serhan Oksay, Hatice Övgü Tüzün of Bahçeşehir University and Gonul Ucele, chair of the department of American culture and literature at Bahçeşehir University, and hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum as part of a larger interdisciplinary project focusing on cultural encounters, poverty and migration. This week’s convention focused on three cities in particular: Istanbul, Venice and Vienna.

On Tuesday, the first day of the conference, there were two sessions: one exploring the relativity of a myth, the other delving into the representation of Istanbul in the arts, media and literature. In the first session, participants heard such speakers as Johannes Marent, a lecturer at the University of Vienna's Institute of Sociology discuss how pictures created by marketing organisations and photographs taken by citizens together create Istanbul’s unique ‘urban imagery’. Meanwhile, Özlem Altınkaya, from Harvard's Doctor of Design Program, gave a presentation on the instrumentality of the Marmara Sea in the making of Istanbul in the Ottoman era. In the second session, the art historian Aytül Papila delved into the changing images of Istanbul in Turkish visual arts, from the beginning of the Westernisation period of the Ottoman Empire until the present day. The designer Sercan Şengün focused on images of Istanbul in video games – not a topic you often hear discussed – comparing the different ways Turkish and international game designers represent the city. Finally, Hatice Övgü Tüzün examined the neo-Orientalist elements in the English crime-fiction writer Barbara Nedel’s Çetin Ikmen series.

I attended on Wednesday, only to discover the presentations I had come to hear had either already taken place or had been cancelled, due to the shuffling around of sessions in the morning. But sitting in on four sessions I hadn't actually planned to attend proved thoroughly enjoyable – it’s always a treat to learn something new and unexpected.

A scene from ‘Homicide Unit Istanbul’, a German TV production set and based in Istanbul, was the basis of Veronika Bernand's talk 

Steve Merrell from Oxford Brookes University spoke about his study of migration and tourism, which aims to explore the way tourism in all three cities is increasingly dependent on migrant labour – a fact that is barely recognised, let alone investigated. Merrell himself is the child of labour workers from Vienna, and his project is part of a larger ‘Stories of our people’ study. The architect Nerma Cridge presented a highly theoretical, three-strand paper on how water in its extremity (ie flooding) can unite seemingly disparate places to create one single, uninterrupted space. After visuals depicting Istanbul, Venice and Vienna flooded she showed examples of paintings of Echo and Narcissus by various masters. The question she posed was a fascinating one: which of these three cities – Istanbul, Vienna or Venice – is most in love with itself and its reflection in the water? She also discussed the architectural ‘selfie’ and the Rain Room installation which has been staged at the Barbican in London and MoMa in New York. Peter Volgger, also an architect, discussed a fascinating project exploring Venice from the point of view of the city’s African migrants – in particular the Murid brotherhood. Migrants establish dynamic networks within a ‘transnational archipelago’ by constantly commuting between their home and host countries, argued Volgger. Rounding off the day was Veronika Bernand’s detailed and often hilarious look into two German TV crime series – one set in Istanbul and one in Venice – and how they promote both stereotypical images and particular social concepts of the two cities.

‘Death in Venice’ poster

Yesterday the focus was on Venice. In a session entitled ‘Venice – A Myth and its Destruction?’, the award-winning film-maker and theatre director Vahid Evazzadeh discussed Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice – a study, if you like, of the re-examination of the self and a reflection on becoming the ‘other’ through someone else’s gaze (an Italian directing a film based on a German novel and conjuring up an exotic view of Italy from a German perspective). Gönül Bakay, an associate professor at Bahçeşehir University who did her PhD on the 18th-century English novel, compared (using Henri Lefebre’s ideas as her theoretical base), the ways Venice is imagined in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion and Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers. In the afternoon, Wibke Joswig, from the Freie Universität Berlin, presented her thesis on the image of the East in early modern Venetian painting.

An altogether successful conference highlighting just some of the interesting research currently being conducted on Istanbul, as well as Venice and Vienna. We look forward to next year's event. Four publications by Veronika Bernard are available from the Images Project for €29.90 each: Film as Spaces of Cultural Encounter (2011), Images of the Poor (2012), Images of the City (2013) and Images of the City: Album. To order, please email Veronika.Bernard@uibk.ac.at.

Main image shows an image of Istanbul by Serhan Oksay.

After the summer hiatus, galleries are opening up for an exciting new season and that means our gallery walks are back. We begin in the gallery hub of Tophane for our first walk of the season.

Ma Shulin, ‘Beautiful Drunk’

Start at the cavernous Ottoman arsenal, Tophane-i Amire, opposite the Tophane tram stop, where the walls are adorned with ink paintings from contemporary Chinese artists in an exhibition entitled Spirit in Ink. Organised in collaboration with the National Art Museum of China, the 48 works on display depict landscapes and the people of China and the surrounding region. The craftsmanship is nothing short of stunning.

Tian Liming, ‘Sunlit Plateau’

Looking ahead, Aslı Gürbüz Şatıroğlu from the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, which curates the exhibitions at Tophane-i Amire, tells me that audiences have a Classic Islamic Arts exhibition to look forward to in February 2015, a Mimar Sinan Age exhibition in April and an exhibition of paintings and sculptures from the Russian Art Academy in June.

Aylin Tekiner, ‘On the Wall’, 2014, photography and audio installation, photo: Fatih Pınar

Head down Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi towards the Tophane tram stop. Take a right into Lüleciler Caddesi and head for DEPO, a former tobacco factory now housing a four-storey art space known for its research-based exhibitions. The current exhibition Mobilising Memory: Women Witnessing is organised within the scope of the Women Creating Change Initiative by the Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference, the second meeting of which is taking place in Istanbul this month (the previous meeting was held in Santiago in December). The exhibition features works by international female artists and activists who explore war, violence, gender and memory in their work.

Gülsün Karamustafa, ‘Memory of a Square’, 2005, double channel video

‘The featured artists reinterpret the concept of memory in innovative ways. They explore the different “acts of witness” (performances, photography, protests, etc) and show how these can provide alternative histories to official archives, memorials and museums. Some artists reflect on what the media talks about, while others act as the media themselves. The artists bring to the forefront not only the violent crimes committed against women, but also the lives and communities that have survived. By honouring those lives and bringing them out of oblivion, the artists also reclaim women’s practices such as dance, song and embroidery, and show their political resonance,’ says one of the curators, Işın Önol.

Sema Kayaönü, ‘Another Story’, 2014, paper and acrylic

On parallel Boğazkesen Caddesi, the long steep street heading all the way to İstiklâl Caddesi, Daire Gallery, at No 76A, will open the solo exhibition of the Izmir-based artist Sema Kayaönü this Friday (September 11). In Everything is Familiar to Us, Kayaönü presents her latest works which she produced using the paper cutting technique and acrylic. ‘Concentrating on city life and how city folk navigate through daily life, Kayaönü threads the traditional art “kat’ı” and reinterprets it in a contemporary way. The result is collages of photographic images in vivid colours,’ says the gallery’s founder, Selin Söl.

Looking ahead, Daire will participate in the Contemporary Istanbul fair in November. ‘And as always, we will be promoting emerging Turkish artists by continuing to host their first solo exhibitions,’ adds Söl.

One of the works in the ‘Anomaly’ exhibition

Next door, PG Art is opening the season with a group exhibition of the gallery’s five represented artists. In Anomaly, artists present humorous, tragi-comic and ironic works that distort the historical information of the artists’ own biographies or that constitute a reality through complete fantasy. Using a variety of mediums, the artists comment on personal narration in the process of perception and interpretation.

The ‘Florikultur’ installation

A steepish climb up the street, on a side street called Nur-i Ziya Sokak which will be on your left, you will find Galeri NON which is hosting Camila Rocha’s highly conceptual ‘Florikultur’ installation in an exhibition entitled Rhizome. The colourful, suspended plants pose questions about space and perception and were first displayed on Sıraselviler Caddesi in nearby Cihangir. Stop by if you’re in the area and take a break on the couch positioned underneath the work.

Main image from WikiMedia Commons.

Key: Blue – Tophane-i Amire, Red – DEPO, Green – Daire, Purple – PG Art, Yellow – Galeri NON

Click here for the interactive map. 

Some years ago I travelled to the Phrygian capital of Gordion to attend a recreation of King Midas’s funereal feast where the recipes were recreated through infrared spectroscopic analysis of the residue of the dirty dishes the mourners left behind. What I remember with most clarity was the Iron (Age)-Bru we were asked to quaff.  It was made from mead, beer and wine and flavoured with raw onion and grated yoghurt cheese. And it tasted awful.

I write this as a prelude to a confession. I don’t understand cocktails. Or at least what I understand is that the real reason to mix drinks is 1) to conceal the poor quality of the alcohol you are working with 2) to conceal the bite of alcohol so that you can drink more and faster. Goodness knows what Phrygian beer tasted like to begin with that it was improved  by being blended with the eighth-century-BC equivalent of cheese and onion crisps.

My second confession is that I recognise that this is an untutored view. After all, conventional and therefore probably mistaken wisdom is that the French invented Béarnaise or Sauce Chasseur to conceal the putrefied flavour of gristly meat. Now that the chops are flavourful and surgically removed from cattle reared on aromatherapy and deep tissue massage, chefs still use sauces. They simply have to raise their game.

You might need to drink tequila with salt, lime or sugary orange if it tastes like paint stripper before you begin. But why would you mix a high quality tequila made from organic agave and distilled by Nobel prize-winning chemists when you could drink it neat?

So maybe I was not the best person to travel to London, guest of the luxury drinks firm, Diageo Reserve World Class, to attend the international Bartender of the Year competition. It was an event organised on a massive scale, from the top floor of the Shard to the bars of the Dorchester and Savoy. On the other hand, a converted sceptic can often prove the most appreciative guest.

I was there, in part, to follow the fortunes of  Onurcan Gencer – the young barman at Istanbul’s Flamingo restaurant. And I watched as he mixed a Robbie Burns in the bar of the Connaught Hotel, using an atomiser to spray the glass with Benedictine or ‘salted’ the margarita glass with an array of spices. Of course, the competition was stiff and as I looked around it was clear gimmickry was not in short supply. Contestant waiting to go on were polishing their conch shells testing the batteries on their flashing ice cubes, filling eye droppers with cinnamon essence or simply firing up their blow torches.

Being the spectator was not the most satisfying of experiences since we didn’t get to imbibe. Indeed, even the judges only took the merest sip before heading for the nearest spittoon. Not that were encouraged to stay sober – there were espresso martinis at dinner and concoctions with apple and cucumber. And after dark we were shipped off to trendy bars in Shoreditch where, to be honest, the drinks were icky sweet and made you want to brush your teeth.

Of course cocktails are about theatre, although there was little of the throwing three shakers in the air and catching them with your feet á la Tom Cruise. Contestants counted themselves lucky to get the drink into the glass without a spill (‘There were two centimetres of water in the shaker. Did you mean not to strain the ice?’ asked one judge to the Tommy Steele lookalike English contestant and the blood drained from his face).

What I did learn was that some spirits are a great deal better than others. I spoke with Tom Nichol, the master distiller of Tanqueray gin and that there is a sort of Zen like skill to getting the taste and texture right (‘With whisky you can balance your mistakes over ten years. Gin is far more technical – it’s ready immediately’).  A really good tequila is best drunk neat and like sauterne goes well with foie gras. Some vodkas are smoother than other – which is fine if you drink it from the bottle but irrelevant if you are diluting it with cranberry juice. I also discovered that I like rum. Diageo produce a particularly tasty one called Zacapa. However, it is also possible to make too good a rum – the top of the range Zacapa XO is blended from 6- to 25-year-old rums and is aged in oak barrels used to mature cognac – and the result is it tastes like cognac.

I still don’t understand cocktails but I am beginning to understand people that do.  And I also understand triumph and defeat. Poor Onurcan didn’t make into the finals but he will live to mix and shake another day.

The Istanbul Photo Contest is now accepting entries for its 2014 competition. Launched in 2008 by Les Arts Turcs, the contest was set up to give international photographers the opportunity to ‘capture the importance of Istanbul’ – from both historical and contemporary point of views.

Last year, 28 photographers submitted 45 images showing the splendours of the city. The first prize was awarded to Hakan Şimsek from Belgium for the above photo. It’s got everything a winning photo of Istanbul needs: a dramatic skyline dotted with mosques, the Bosphorus and an elderly local in a skullcap.

Second prize went to Julia Syuta from Russia who captured a wedding ceremony at the Blue Mosque.

Third prize went to Tania Gisselbrecht from France who shot another popular Istanbul local: a seagull.

Honourable mentions included some of the below photographs showing the colourful characters of Istanbul.

Tanya Nekrasova

Ilya Shtutsa

Olga Militsyna

Photographs of tourist and historical attractions are encouraged, such of the city walls, mosques, museums, bridges, towers, churches, synagogues, sufi lodges, bazaars, cisterns and palaces. Or photographers can capture the people and the daily life of Istanbul: cats, parks, fountains, baths, markets, shopping centres, authentic Turkish cuisine, boutique hotels, handcrafts and shops, artists and carpet sellers.

The first, second and third prize-winners win a three, two and one day all-expenses-paid trip to Istanbul, respectively. Ten honourable mentions also win a Whirling Dervish Ceremony Tour. Applications are open until January 20, 2015. Click here for more information. 

Dolphins joined the 12-strong fleet of extreme sailing catamarans close to the shore at Yenikapı as the Istanbul Extreme Regatta got underway, and they were not the only things that were flying out of the water. The Extreme 40 catamaran was designed to maximise excitement for spectators; about as light as an old Mini Cooper and extremely responsive, speeds can reach 30 knots and the acceleration can be staggering. Collisions, dismastings and fantastically well matched boats would have ensured some memorable racing for the most detached of spectators, but this is also the first time that a Turkish boat has entered the series, and the applause from the crowd as TeamTurX crossed the finish line must have added a knot or two.

Twelve boats from around the world are taking part in the Istanbul series, which largely consists of short races around buoys laid just outside Yenikapı harbour. The Turkish team was founded by Edhem Dirvana, who drove them, after just two weeks training at Tuzla and Yenikapi, to hold their own against legends of sailing including Sarah Ayton, Anna Tunnicliffe, Sir Ben Ainslie and Franck Cammas. Perhaps it was local knowledge that allowed them to sneak up a line of wind to take line honours with aplomb during the second day of sailing; certainly winds were flukey and light, in stark contrast to the day before, when Alinghi (SWZ) and Groupama (FRA) pushed too hard and heard the sickening crunch of their carbon-fibre masts crumpling in gusts of up to 20 knots.

TeamTurX also came out well of the Saturday race down the Bosphorous, steaming downwind under the Bosphorous bridge to finish fourth behind RealTeam (SWZ). The sight of the catamarans replacing the usual Bosphorous traffic, which had been stopped specially for the occasion, is sure to inspire an exponential growth of interest in competitive multihull sailing in Turkey, which until now has been a little becalmed. 'Yacht clubs encourage children to learn on unihulls, and catamarans are seen as not glamorous enough for the big boat enthusiasts,' explained an onlooker. Few could deny the power of racing this good, however, with nerve-clenching twists in every race. The Wave, Muscat (OMN) leads at the moment, but everything could change in the last day of racing today. Racing begins at 2pm at Yenikapı. Catch it while you can...

For those who cannot make it to Yenikapı (easily accessible now by metro), live footage of today's race is available online at www.extremesailingseries.com.

The Team Turx catamaran at the Tuzla Yacht Club, where Edhem Dirvana's Turkish team trained in the run up to their first international competetion. The club is also home to Istanbul's 12-Footer Championships.

We are in bustling Beyoğlu this week for some diverse and thoroughly fascinating shows.

Exhibition view

Let’s start in the middle of İstiklâl Caddesi (past the Galatasaray Lycée) at SALT Beyoğlu (above). The exhibition du jour, Summer Homes: Claiming the Coast, presents a study – supported by extensive research – of the tradition of the Turkish summer home. Meriç Öner, associate director of SALT Research and Programs, tells us that the show focuses on the coastal built environment in Turkey and explores the country’s recent past from an architectural perspective. ‘A comprehensive study on this subject has long been neglected, maybe because of the greater emphasis placed on cities. The research was almost inevitable, due to its potential to explore the visibly approaching future of the redevelopment of this once untouched land,’ she says.

Ekin Özbiçer, from the photography series ‘The Blue Flag’, 2013–2014 

Öner suggests viewers pay particular attention to Ekin Özbiçer’s photographs of quirky summer social clubs and housing developments, the excerpt from Oktay Rifat’s novel Through a Woman’s Window, which portrays the ideal of a summer home for the average Istanbul white-collar worker, and the satellite images of popular Aegean coastal towns. ‘Studied together, these three encompass the story of the summer home – in Rifat's words, “in their decaying”,’ says Öner.

Looking ahead, there will be an exhibition of Akram Zaatari’s works at SALT from December.

Sutee Kunavichayanont, ‘History Class Part 2’, 2013, interactive installation with 23 wooden school desks and chairs, installation view: Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Thailand, 2013

Continue along İstiklâl Caddesi towards Tünel, and at No 211 you'll come to ARTER, who this Thursday are opening a group exhibition of Asian artists. Curated by the researcher and critic Iola Lenzi, The Roving Eye: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia presents 40 works by 36 artists from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia. Placing particular emphasis on works embracing experience, interactivity and participation, the exhibition will feature installations, videos, sound pieces, photography and performances, a number of them specially commissioned.

‘Southeast Asian contemporary art is exciting and unique because it has an active stake in social and political issues,’ says Lenzi. ‘It combines strong aesthetics, conceptual sophistication, an inventive use of materials and a socio-political discourse that actively challenges the status quo.’

Vu Dan Tan, ‘Insects’, from the series ‘Suitcases of a Pilgrim’, 2001–2006, recycled cardboard, gouache, Chinese ink, glass-lidded box, 32 x 40 x 7 cm each approx., courtesy of the Vu Dan Tan Foundation, Hanoi, Vietnam

Lenzi’s favourite pieces include Sutee Kunavichayanont’s ‘History Class’ installation (above top), involving the viewer in the rediscovery of forgotten histories. Vu Dan Tan’s multi-faceted ‘Suitcase of a Pilgrim’ series (above), is another highlight.

Ardan Özmenoğlu, ‘En’

Take the next main right turn into Asmalımescit Caddesi. At No 5, ALAN Istanbul has an interactive group show opening on Thursday. ‘In this exhibition the space becomes art and art becomes space,’ says Dilek Altınyuva Sebatlı, the gallery’s communications director. You Are Here aims to answer such questions as: How are new forms of the artistic experience reflected on pages of a magazine or a website? How can the ‘here-and-now’ of experiencing art be made comprehensible in an exhibition catalogue, an art book or on a blog; and how can this be conveyed to future generations? All the displayed works will be collated in a publication, to be circulated simultaneously in Istanbul and New York, further exploring the relationship between art and publication.

Ramazan Bayrakoglu, ‘SIENNA’, 2014

Coming up at ALAN are solo exhibitions of Merve Şendil, Canan Öztürk and Ayline Olukman.

Stephan Kaluza, ‘Still 2’, 2014, 110 x 95

Further up, at No 32, Sanatorium is displaying landscape paintings and other works by the German artist Stephan Kaluza. This show explores the relationship between nature and the human world, and the associations we have with names.

Stephan Kaluza, ‘Still 5’, 2014, oil on canvas, 120 x 150 cm

The gallery’s owner, Feza Velicangil, tells me: ‘Besides his works, I am a fan of Stephan’s all-round artistic personality. Although he graduated from the famous painting department at Dusseldorf Art Academy, it was his photographs that I first became familiar with. Over time, my admiration grew. I think his visual style, whether he is dressing actors on the stage or painting, is consistent and idosyncratic.’

In the near future, Sanatorium will host shows mainly of its represented artists, including Handan Figen, Erol Eskici, Yağız Özgen and Sevil Tunaboylu. There will also be exhibitions of Sıtkı Kösemen and Maja Weyermann.

Rasim Aksan, ‘Paradoks’, 2014, oil and acrylic airbrush on canvas, 155 x 140 cm

On perpendicular Meşrutiyet Caddesi, Galerist opens a new show of the Turkish hyperrealist painter Rasim Aksan this Friday (September 19). In Narcissus, Aksan provocatively explores the ‘selfie’ culture. Iconic animal portraits, seeming to look down on the audience, are presented alongside intricate figurative drawings of naked flesh and genitalia. Eda Berkmen, the gallery’s associate director, particularly admires Aksan’s ‘detailed technique and the way he sees and portrays the world’.

This year, Galerist will be exhibiting both local and international artists, and hints at new additions to its roster.

Graffiti art by Futura

Next door, Pera Museum is in its last weeks of displaying a unique exhibition of graffiti and street art. Language of the Wall brings together works by European, American and Japanese graffiti artists, as well as showcasing local talent. The idea is literally to ‘bring the street into the museum’. If you visit on either of the next two Wednesdays, stay for the evening Wednesday Concert Series, featuring young Polish musicians.

Main image courtesy of SALT Beyoğlu.

Key: Blue – SALT Beyoğlu, Red – Arter, Green – ALAN, Yellow – Sanatorium, Purple – Galerist, Light Blue – Pera Museum

Click here for the interactive map.

As our readers know, Cornucopia Magazine is all about Turkey, but it has one foot in Istanbul and one foot in the Scottish Borders. So today is a day of reckoning. Having watched Turkey take the first step in dismantling its hard-won parliamentary constitution this summer, it is with some foreboding that we watch to see if we in Scotland will throw away our centuries-old union with England, Wales and the Irish, in order to become a puppet of whoever most wants our natural resources – most probably China, according to a well-informed Turkish columnist and strategist.

As in Turkey's presidential election, much is skewed with this referendum. In this case the skewing begins with the question on the ballot paper: Should Scotland be an independent country? Of course it should. Everyone says so, just as you and I should be independent people. But to retain a chance of holding on to the independence we already have, the freedom of movement, of speech, of the way we speak, of belief, of ethnicity, of all the things that Britain as an island has won since Magna Carta, there is only one way to vote.

Fingers crossed.

Main picture: The impressive Hands Across the Border Cairn, behind the Old Toll House at Gretna Green, on the English–Scottish border. The message in these troubled times is simple: hold together. There is no place for inflated political egos, shibboleths and spurious new borders.

Also see Gordon Brown on the state of the Union

Anticipation is high for the second edition of this art fair, aiming to challenge the veteran Contemporary Istanbul. ArtInternational is still very much the new kid on the block, but the fair is set to deliver the goods this year with interesting side programmes, exclusive displays of new works by big names and a longer list of exhibiting galleries. ArtInternational will host 80 galleries this year (up from 62 galleries last year), of which 12 are Turkish. No one knew how the fair was going to fare, but with an estimated 20 million euros in sales for its first outing, it seems galleries that were initially wary of ArtInternational have now been enticed.

Of the Turkish galleries, some of the city’s top dogs will participate: Dirimart, Galeri Nev, Rodeo and Sanatorium will join last year’s participants Galeri NON, Galeri Mana, Pi Artworks, Pilot, Rampa, Art Sümer, x-ist and Galeri Zilberman. Unlike Contemporary Istanbul, which tends to keep things regional in terms of its choice of international galleries (Russia featured heavily last year), ArtInternational has secured cutting-edge galleries from all over Europe, the States and a selected few from the Middle East and Asia. Galleries from 24 countries in total will take part.

Taner Ceylan, ‘Persephone’ and ‘Cyparissus’, ‘Golden Age’ series, Paul Kasmin Gallery

New York’s Paul Kasim Gallery will present brand-new works by the Istanbul-based, German-born hyperrealist artist Taner Ceylan, dubbed the ‘bad body’ of Turkish art. Two works from the artist’s newest series Golden Age will make their world premiers at the fair – ‘Ay Teni’ (‘The Skin of the Moon’) and ‘Ay Masalı’ (‘The Moon Tale’). ‘Persephone’ and ‘Cypharissus’ from the same series will be debuted in Turkey for the first time.

One of Diane Arbus’ photos

New York’s Robert Miller Gallery will unveil works by Diane Arbus, the doomed American photographer, who had her heyday from the late 1940s to the 1960s, and was known for her black-and-white square portraits of deviant and marginal people. The gallery will also show works by the Magnum Photos alumni Herbert List who – in contrast to Arbus – took glossy shots for popular fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Patti Smith, mostly known for her singing and occasional writing, will also have her photographs showcased.

London’s Andipa Gallery will exhibiting works by David Hockey, Banksy and Damien Hirst, as well as from the king of pop art, Andy Warhol.

Another highlight is will be the Turner Prize winning artist, Grayson Perry’s autobiographical work, ‘Claire’, in which he depicts his female alter-ego (above). 

Osman Dinç, ‘Rain Fountain’, 2013, courtesy of Pi Artworks

‘By the Waterside’, the name given to the fair’s terrace dedicated to sculptures, is back, with works by eight artists including Joan Miró, the Japanese artist Keita Miyazaki and the Turkish artist, Osman Dinç, known for his minimalist sculptures made from metal, glass and iron. Boasting the elegant Haliç Congress Center as its venue, ArtInternational has the advantage of taking place in an airy, modern building with 360-degree views of the city.

Last year's ‘By the Waterside’ (photo: © Honeybunn Photography)

‘The works that will be presented range from a two-metre tall Miró bronze to Ali Miharbi’s hi-tech anemometer. Apart from creating an inspiring outdoor viewing experience for visitors, this section offers a new context for the artworks, which some of the artists and galleries have particularly responded too. For example, Naifeh with Leila Heller Gallery, and Miyazaki with Rosenfeld Porcini, will both show new works in their current series which have been created specifically for ArtInternational,’ said Dyala Nusseibeh, the fair director.

The synchronous Artistic Programme has not been announced yet but includes various projects, alternative ways to enjoy art and a film programme. There will also be a rich programme of talks and panels, spanning topics as diverse as art and medicine, architecture and the visualisation of research. Click here for the full programme.

ArtInternational  takes place from September 26 to 28, 2014.

Main image © Honeybunn Photography. 

CREETOWN GRANITE

Formed from an enormous blob of molten rock, this granite may have been created when continents collided and Scotland and England were united. Trapped beneath the earth's surface it cooled down to become a hard silver grey stone that stands the test of time. Quarried nearby, the granite was used to build Liverpool docks and can be seen on the clock-tower of Creetown.

A reader's chance encounter when taking a spin down the Solway Firth on Scottish Referendum Day.

The lady at the Creetown petrol station remarked: 'Better the deil you know that the deil don't know'.

And those curious about the Scottish Referendum might take a look at this:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2014/sep/17/scottish-referendum-explained-for-non-brits-video

This week we are in Taksim and Cihangir for our gallery walk, where three of our favourite galleries are hosting powerful solo/duo shows.

C M Koseman, ‘Errant Head’, 2014, acrylic on art paper, 70 x 100.5 cm

C M KOSEMAN’S UNUTTERABLE EXPRESSIONS

The three galleries we visit are all located on Sıraserviler Caddesi, the street that links Taksim to Cihangir. Past the kebap shops, hotels and bars, the consistently good Empire Project at No 10, is hosting the first solo exhibition of C M Koseman – Unutterable Expressions – in parallel to showcasing the artist at the Unseen Photo Fair, which took place in Amsterdam over the weekend.

C M Koseman, ‘Anoat’, 2014, ink on art paper, 21.5 x 14 cm

Koseman’s paintings and drawings have a distinct style and aim – on the whole – to explore the human psyche and the notion of the conscious and sub-conscious through symbolism and the imagery of archetypes, body parts and animals. These powerful images – some in colour, others in black and white – stay with you long after you leave the gallery.

Michael Anastassiades, ‘Biri Biri, 2014, opaline glass and brass, 30 x 15 x 15 cm

DOINGS ON TIME AND LIGHT

Across the road at No 49, the innovative Rodeo is hosting Doings on Time and Light, an exhibition combining new paintings by the Greek artist Eftihis Patsourakis with a new series of lights and objects designed specially for the show by the Cyprus-born, London-based designer Michael Anastassiades. Always pushing boundaries with their unique shows, Rodeo’s latest is a study in photographic nostalgia, social media, games and magic.

Fikret Atay, ‘The Walking Memories", 2014, 06’19”

FIKRET ATAY’S PARIS VILLAGE

Further along at No 81, the pioneering Pilot (main image) is hosting brand-new works by the artist Fikret Atay. After a five-year hiatus, this much-loved artist is back with an exhibition, Paris Village, exploring memory, trauma and the body. The three videos presented in the show each tell their own stories, while also having common narrative ties.

‘The Walking Memories’ is a zombie movie focusing on the return of women to a village. The women’s repetitive behaviour alludes to the continuity of time and compulsiveness of memory, while the idea of returning underlies the notion of incompletion. ‘Giants’ is a post-apocalyptic romance showing repeating images of such archetypal characters and themes as the urban girl, the village boy, impossible love and endless deserts. The third video, ‘Paris Village’ is an absurd black comedy, which takes place in a Turkish village. Symbols coinciding with the name of the village are shown in parallel to the Eiffel Tower being discussed by members of the community. While the elders of the village refuse to acknowledge its existence, the consensus is to turn the tower into a hybrid construction: a minaret equipped with speakers.

Deniz Üster, ‘Beyond is Before’, 2013, Apple Pro-Res HD film, 48’02”, 16:9

20XX: RELICS

Next door, Co-Pilot is hosting a group exhibition of seven artists, each exploring the notion of the relic. Curated by the gallery’s co-founder, Amira Akbıyıkoğlu, 20xx: Relics wants to leave the viewer experiencing the merging of the natural and the artificial, the vertical and the horizontal and the IRL and the URL. Some ambitious works are on display.

Main image: Murat Germen

Key: Blue – The Empire Project, Red – Rodeo, Green – Pilot, Yellow – Co-Pilot

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