Where does history live? In the curricula of school books, on library shelves divided into neat sections, on the front page of Nokta magazine hidden among dusty layers in bookshops, on the pages of Ana Britannica collected fascicle by fascicle, on the pages of Meydan Larousse Büyük Lugat, in the recordings of 32. Gün that you come across on YouTube, or in the lines of fairy tales, fables, voices recorded on cassettes, dictaphones? Does the story of a day, of a life, go down in history when written down, or does it pass down from generation to generation, from person to person, through words and sounds? Is it writing or telling that keeps history alive? Is it definite and unchangeable? Can it be bent, twisted, and shaped by reminiscences? Can a history take itself wherever it goes? Is it supposed to remain constant? Can it be broken down into its personal and social components? Is it part of the whole that is brought together by invisible threads? Is one obliged to remember history or forget it, to evolve into the future? When we consider that the period that is part of the past while we are still alive is one of the layers of history, maybe we can say that the present, which is the first stage of the future, cannot exist without the past.
History lives in the totality of words written on the painted wall, in the notes on the back of photographs pasted in albums, in letters without envelopes, in VHS tapes, sometimes in the smell of dampness, sometimes in the smell of lentil soup mixed with soap, in the first three notes of a song, in the voice you hear in your mind but cannot pronounce, in the discussions that intermingle as you switch from channel to channel on television.
Pandeli
Today, we are in the place known in the history as the place at the end of the stairs from the Spice Bazaar for some, as the restaurant with a Michelin Star for others, as the warmth of the oven for some others, and as the corner where Mr Pandeli pulls out his chair for many more. In Rüstem Paşa, on a journey of the history of Istanbul.
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Hazal
Bir Işık Hüzmesi Üzerine exhibits at Taksim Sanat
Curated by Begüm Güney, the exhibition Bir Işık Hüzmesi Üzerine is open to visitors until 30 December at Taksim Sanat, the exhibition zone of Kültür AŞ by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.
Consisting of surreal works by 17 different artists, the exhibition hosts the works of Sümer Sayın, Serkan Demir, Gözde Mulla, Bilal Yılmaz, Ahmet Öğüt, Ece Kibaroğlu, Nergiz Yeşil, Esin Aykanat Avcı, Ali Şentürk, Fulya Çetin/Sine Ergün, Sergen Şehitoğlu, Mehmet Dere, Özge Yağcı, Osman Dinç, Berkay Tuncay and Özden Demir.
You can visit this link to find out more about the exhibition and follow Kültür AŞ here to keep up with the latest activities in Istanbul.
