Arkad – Mapping Istanbul’s Passages – İstanbul, TR
Between 2021 and 2023, I documented the historic passages (pasajlar) and commercial buildings (hanlar) of Beyoğlu, Istanbul—creating an interactive archive of urban transformation as part of an ERC-funded research project.
About the Project
Arkad was more than a photography project. It was an ethnographic investigation into how economic crisis, political polarization, migration, demographic shifts, and the pandemic were reshaping one of Istanbul’s most culturally significant districts.
Beyoğlu’s passages—once vibrant commercial and social spaces—were closing, being repurposed, or reduced to mere shortcuts. Each disappearance erased a piece of the city’s memory. Through fieldwork, archival research, and original photography, I mapped these spaces.
Research Context:
This work was conducted as part of the ERC Starting Grant-funded project “Staging National Abjection” at Kadir Has University (2021–2022), where I served as research assistant. The project examined how urban infrastructure reflects and reinforces social and political exclusions.
Method:
I combined systematic documentation with archival investigation—photographing each passage’s current state while researching its historical evolution. The resulting interactive map integrated visual, spatial, and narrative data, creating a digital archive accessible to researchers, residents, and anyone interested in Istanbul’s urban memory.
Why Passages Matter:
Passages are indicators of urban change. Their transformation—or disappearance—reveals dynamics of gentrification, displacement, economic pressure, and shifting cultural identity. By documenting them, Arkad preserves evidence of a city in flux and the communities being erased in the process.
Liminal Fields – REGIONALE 23, Freiburg, DE
The Regionale is an annual group exhibition developed in the context of a cross-border cooperation of 18 institutions in Germany, France and Switzerland with a focus on local, contemporary art production in the three-country region around Basel.
With Liminal Fields, the three artists create a world of dissolution and transition. Instead of walls and fences, poles and thresholds serve as orientation. Boundaries are not abolished, but they become permeable and softened. Instead of dualism, continuity prevails. The result is a sphere of processuality, of transitions, an aesthetic and social field of experimentation that invites visitors to linger, contemplate, play and interact.
Artists: Paula Mierzowsky, Michael Gärtner and Johann Diel
Photos: Berk Alkoç
Exhibition: REGIONALE 23 // E-Werk Freiburg, Germany
