The Materials

Sometimes, not often, works of art drive you on to think beyond them, of issues and problems which they open up. The research project that has developed out of our engagement with Kutluğ Ataman’s work is called “Istanbul – Skin of the City” and it includes many materials; a stranger’s photographic cycle of the city of Istanbul by Stefan Roemer, an archive of wedding cultures throughout Turkey assembled by Nermin Saybasili (for MuHKA installation, 2006), a collection of photos of Ataturk gathered by Irit Rogoff, many hours of TV from Istanbul recorded by Ataman, books and magazines, some on our website, we have all encountered on the way. The works of art have made us work and in turn that work has been put forward not as a context but as a set of membranes which wrap around the video installations and complicate our relations to them. You might think that all these materials make this an exhibition about Turkey or Istanbul but it isn’t really, it’s about all of us and how we encounter difference and strangeness.