"Habitat" Exhibition Held at Istanbul Modern

Istanbul Modern Photography Gallery presents the "Habitat" exhibition, featuring diverse approaches by leading contemporary photographers in Turkey addressing living spaces. The exhibition brings together the work of 13 artists selected in collaboration with the Istanbul Modern Photography Advisory Board, within the framework of the habitat concept.

Istanbul Modern brings together prominent contemporary photographers around a conceptual framework, tracking new trends in Turkish photography's present and future.

"Habitat" Exhibition Open 23 December 2015 - 22 May 2016

The "Habitat" exhibition was positioned as a Festival Guest Exhibition Space within the PHotoEspaña Photography Festival dedicated to European photography in 2016. Under the advisory of Merih Akoğul, Orhan Cem Çetin, Murat Germen and Sıtkı Kösemen, curated by Sena Çakırkaya, "Habitat" addresses topics including the relationship between humans and urban and natural environments, migration, urban transformation, travel, personal space and dystopia. In the "Habitat" exhibition, which traces the concept of space being redefined daily, photographs and videos by Kürşat Bayhan, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, Zeynep Beler, Görkem Ergün, Beril Gür, Çağlar Kanzık, Oğuz Karakütük, Barbaros Kayan, Gündüz Kayra, Neslihan Koyuncu, Desislava Şenay Martinova, Ali Taptık and Serkan Taycan offer different perspectives on the subject. The exhibition will be on view at Istanbul Modern Photography Gallery between 23 December 2015 - 22 May 2016.

Exhibition Focuses on Conflicting Habitats Through Photography

The "Habitat" exhibition, selecting one of the concepts that defines the scene of life's fundamental movements and conflicts as its name and subject, brings together through photography different states of this scene, ways of perceiving it and transformations it undergoes over time. The exhibition includes spaces that are physically recreated and redefined nearly daily, thus establishing contradictory relationships of belonging with collective memory over time. On the other hand, the exhibition focuses on habitats that conflict with one another as a result of relationships between existing different social dynamics or boundaries that are drawn. "Habitat" aims to give voice to different factors that shape living spaces, thereby objectively tracing changing power balances.

Different Representations of Despair and Power, Dreams and Reality

Curator Sena Çakırkaya, referring to how individuals' attempts to resist amid urban transformations, questions of who can define ideal living spaces and what current conditions offer us remain vigorously debated, notes that the "Habitat" exhibition brings together different conceptions about living spaces: "The dominance of metropolises over vegetation and rural areas, city memory constantly subject to recycling through changing policies and population balances, creative struggle for the right to shelter—these topics draw attention to fundamental necessities required for existence. Roads traveled to find work or simply 'to find oneself,' journeys within walls, physical or imaginary boundaries we draw frame our perception of life and space. Our choices of defense or attack to feel more secure determine our survival strategies. Ultimately, our effort to have a say in the habitat that is the common stage of our lives brings together different representations of despair and power, dreams and reality."

Different Approaches to Living Spaces by 13 Artists

Kürşat Bayhan's "Away from Home" (2006-2012) project, developed over approximately five years, focuses on the lives of people who migrated from Anatolia to Istanbul, later also documenting the hometowns these individuals came from to bear witness to their diminished lives accompanying migration. Kerem Ozan Bayraktar's "Air Conditioners" (2015) series is based on digitally removing windows from building facade photographs to highlight air conditioning units, natural gas pipes and other climate control devices. The project's starting point addresses the mundanity of a condition we take for granted—our struggle against natural air conditions in our shelter spaces—making visible the closed systems we create in our living areas. Zeynep Beler, in her series "Mansions" (2014), addresses the eerie desolation of gated communities in Izmir, Urla that were started but abandoned and left unfinished for various reasons, drawing attention to how, in response to increasing housing needs accompanying migration in Turkey, luxury residences built far in excess of needs create serious oversupply. Görkem Ergün, in his "Plunder" (2015) series exposes the pleasure and manipulative aspects of humanity's game of hunting and killing with predetermined outcomes. In the relationships he establishes between public sculptures and found hunting photographs, he reveals monumental symbols of power reflected in the silhouettes of these images. Beril Gür, in her series "Home Street Photographs" (2011-2012), inspired by Xavier de Maistre's book "A Journey Around My Room," observes the street/public realm from within the private on an "between windows" journey. Through observations made while hidden in the privacy of her home, Beril Gür takes on the role of narrator of the ordinary yet equally absurd situations in the daily flow around her. Çağlar Kanzık, in his "Punishment" (2012) series, begins with the fortress posts drawn by inmates on the walls of Istanbul's Bayrampaşa Prison. In the first phase of the project, he photographs walls bearing these drawings; in the subsequent phase, he places these images onto photographs of desolate, boundless terrain, pointing to invisible boundaries set socially and personally. Oğuz Karakütük, in his "Delta" (2014-2015) series, creates a completely new reality construct with nature images encountered on long solitary journeys to unfamiliar places, similar to how rivers reshape the stones they carry along their entire course before ultimately creating a delta. Barbaros Kayan, in his "Ayazma" project, focuses on the stories of 15 families living in Istanbul's Ayazma neighborhood, an urban transformation area. Because these families living in Ayazma have nowhere else to go after demolition, they build shacks from the rubble, and when these too are torn down, they rebuild their shelters from the remaining debris, continuing this cycle until they secure their right to shelter. Gündüz Kayra, in his "Aegean" (1990-2000) series produced in a small town on the Aegean coast where he has long lived, presents tranquil landscapes that greeted him after the city's chaotic environment. After the artist is surrounded by crowds at certain times of year, he traces the marks left by people in this geography's untouched nature, abandoned with seasonal change. Neslihan Koyuncu's "Finger Will" (2014) project is based on the time when the artist learned her mother had cancer and began struggling with it. In her photographs, by covering unwanted images with her finger, she attempts to regain control of her life and surroundings. Desislava Şenay Martinova, in her "Beings of the Night" series, recognizes the night as a habitat in itself, documenting the living spaces of people who emerge after dark.

Focusing on life experienced in the city at night, she revives through photography strange moments from her memory, extraordinary events and people she personally witnessed at different times.

Ali Taptık, in his ongoing "Toward a Vegetation Cover" project since 2010, addresses plant forms within city life that are either attempted to be integrated or spontaneously emerge, with a detailed approach aimed at identification and categorization. He focuses on our differing attitudes toward plants in cities and our efforts and ambitions in sustaining them or perhaps subjugating them. Serkan Taycan, in his "Shell" (2012) project, addresses today's Istanbul panorama within the scope of urbanization policies experienced in recent history, presenting the resulting new topography. This excavation imagery, containing many colors and layers, presents both the demolitions occurring in various parts of Istanbul and cycles of different spaces and times as a cross-section.     Save