The Story Takes Place in Istanbul, focuses on representations of Istanbul produced at different times and in various literary genres from the 16th century to the present. In the selection, which is centered on approximately 300 books from the Ömer Koç Collection, manuscripts belonging to the authors, rare first editions, and signed and dedicated books are accompanied by various works such as engravings, paintings, music booklets, films, posters from different sources, as well as published Turkish translations and newspaper clippings. The exhibition, which brings together different representations of Istanbul, is curated by Ebru Esra Salesman and Şeyda Çetin.
The exhibition covers everything from Voltaire’s Candide to Lord Byron’s Don Juan, from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando to Pierre Loti’s Aziyadé. and Ian Fleming’s James Bond, invites you to a journey in the footsteps of the characters of Western literature whose paths pass through Istanbul.
Meşher Director Nilüfer H. Konuk, who undertook the design and implementation of the exhibition, said,: ‘‘While it reminds us of the descriptions of Istanbul by famous poets and writers such as Victor Hugo, William Butler Yeats, and Jules Verne, it also opens a door for the discovery of new works.”
Curator Ebru Esra Satıcı explains the preparation process of the exhibition as follows: “In the exhibition where we focused on the rare books in the Ömer Koç Collection, we focused on the representations of Istanbul in fictional Western literature. The starting point, the ‘seed’, was books. Books adapted for the stage or screen, whose visual materials we had access to, were able to branch out openly in the gallery. We included newspaper clippings in the exhibition showing how the Turkish translations and adaptations of the works, if any, resonated in Turkey.’’
“The Story Takes Place in Istanbul, in this way, was rooted in the books and flourished by blending it with cinema and stage adaptations and the reactions these created in Turkey,” she explains.
Summoning different representations of Istanbul, the exhibition encourages visitors to examine how the city has been used as a backdrop, while exploring how its inhabitants, historical events and culture have inspired literature, and how these representations have been manifested in other creative fields. Highlighting the fluidity among literary genres, similarities and contrasts between representations, as well as continuities and ruptures within them, the exhibition suggests questioning assumed dichotomies such as past and present, fiction and reality, and East and West.
