© Güliz Kayahan
Rapidly expanding across the city’s historic venues since its 2018 inception, 212 Photography Istanbul puts the focus on discovery with an enticing mix of local and international artists
Cleaved by the Bosphorus and straddling two continents, Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, and one of the largest in Europe. This autumn the 212 Photography Istanbul festival brings exhibitions across the city, plus workshops, panels, screenings, performances and portfolio reviews. The mostly-female festival team works with an advisory board to pinpoint new trends in the art scene every year; photography is the crux, but they also embrace digital media, video and installation.
212 Photography Istanbul overlaps with the Istanbul Biennial to maximise appeal to visitors, and it always includes international names – this year featuring work by Harry Gruyaert (in particular his Istanbul series), Steve McCurry, Erwin Olaf, Cooper & Gorfer, and Christopher Herwig, among others, as well as cross-disciplinary artists such as Toma Gerzha. But the festival also supports local talents, especially up-and-coming image-makers, both in its exhibitions and programming. It invited Gruyaert to the city earlier this year to give a workshop, for example, based in the 212 Studio offices.
212 Photography Istanbul ran its first edition in 2018, when it was hosted in a single venue; “now we are using at least 30 different venues all around the city, and it is important for us to make it bigger,” says festival director Banu Tunçağ. She adds that, “We match the exhibitions with the venues”, and this year, one of the best examples is at Pangaltı Latin Catholic Cemetery in the Feriköy neighbourhood. It is usually closed to the public, but the festival obtained special access to show work by Mustafa Seven, a member of the Turkish Photojournalists Association, who has been documenting the solemn graveyard. Another unusual venue is Ceneviz Sanat, a palazzo dating back to the Byzantine period, in which an installation by Turkish textile artist Tuba Geçgel will be on view.
“It is not easy to create a sustainable, strong, professionally accepted art and photography culture in Turkey”
Fifteen minutes’ walk from the palazzo is a duo show at 212 Studio, pairing work by ES Kibele Yarman with images by curator and film-maker Çağla Demirbaş. Yarman’s collages have a whimsical feel, layering eyes, diamonds, statues, hands, celestial orbits and staircases. Demirbaş’ analogue photographs are produced using layering techniques and double exposures, and yield a similarly hallucinatory atmosphere.
A group exhibition at İstiklal Art Gallery, titled Close to the Surface, includes a collage series by recent art-school graduate Güliz Kayahan, created using anonymous family photographs sourced from secondhand bookshops. Kayahan visibly stitches the images with red yarn, suturing them with sentences cut out from letters. Her work is shown alongside Hilal Özdemir’s punchy light art and Dilan Pak’s experimental abstractions, among others in the exhibition.
“Our programme curation is based on, and focused on, discovery,” says Tunçağ, who cites previous festival participants as proud success stories. Serhat Kır won the 212 Photography Competition in 2023, for example, and was nominated for this year’s Prix Pictet for his work on urban transformation and ecology; Tunçağ also commends Damla Şahinbaş, included in a group exhibition in 2022, for her compelling studies of human relations, including queer ones.
When asked if Turkey’s conservative political regime limits what can be shown, Tunçağ clarifies, “We are not a very political festival that would be a problem for any artists”. But she adds that, more generally, “It is not easy to create a sustainable, strong, professionally accepted art and photography culture in Turkey”. 212 Studio, an agency which also has production and strategic content arms, and publishes a biannual Turkish/English magazine, is part of a scene that is championing another vision.
