Bliss Street, is inhabited by 6 women and one man; first comes Alba, my grandmother, who in her 104th year is the healthiest and sharpest person at the house, then there is Olga, her daughter and official owner who is 71 and lives through the eyes of her mother, through her memories of her life in Colorado and the stories that her walls tell. She spends her time organizing a room that does not want to be organized. Teo (54), her brother is the youngest son of Alba, he has been struggling with diabetes for decades; he spends a lot of time in solitude.

Selected by Diederik Meijer on April 30, 2010

Touching Strangers is an ongoing photographic project stemming from my interest in the dynamics of group portraiture. The premise of this work is simple: I meet two or more people on the street who are strangers to each other, and to me. I ask them if they will pose for a photograph together with the stipulation that they must touch each other in some manner. Frequently, I instruct or coach the subjects how to touch. Just as often, I let their tentative physical exploration play out before my camera with no interference.

Selected by Diederik Meijer on April 29, 2010

As a child I grew up at different rural places of Turkey because my father’s job required us to move often. Each new place meant a new world to me. As a child, It was not hard to adapt to these new locations. Later, I moved to Istanbul for my higher education. My youthful excitement and curiosity replaced my childish enthusiasm and helped me adapt to the big city. Although this adaptation wasn’t as easy as it used to be in my childhood days, I managed to build a new life.

Selected by Sinem Yoruk on April 28, 2010

In her series “Transformer,” Sevim Sancaktar takes close-ups of the wall illusions painted on electrical transformers throughout Istanbul and some surrounding cities. A representation of their time as well as a deformed reflection of urban history, architectural element as much as artistic expression, these images form a social and cultural portrait of the town; A city, eclectic as much as electric, that merges the occidental with the oriental, the classical with the contemporary, thus creating a utopical anachronism. Playing on the deceptive and aesthetic function of her subject, the photographer creates a new illusion by taking away from reality its three-dimensional essence.

Selected by Sinem Yoruk on April 27, 2010

All my life, I have been dreaming about art. I have been following my feelings and trying to do what entices and intrigues me. Somehow I believe I can string along on my luck.
But I also believe the courage to follow what you think is right. Breaking the rules in my conservative family and my cultural surroundings was a duty as much as a person as an artist. In my artwork, for a while, I made untitled and abstract works. Then I later started to take pictures. But photography and painting were not separate for me. I made several series with prints and mixed media. I analyzed my family photos, and it was like rediscovering lost memories.

Selected by Sinem Yoruk on April 26, 2010

This work uses an objective and detached photographic language about reality to form questions on abstraction. The order of artifacts is re-ordered and an emptied off-season location is further emptied of its overt meanings through photography under artificial light. It was realized through a visual exploration carried out exclusively on Susanoglu Beach. This choice was made because it had been the venue of an important part of my life, and the source of a personal obsession, yet this work has no place for nostalgia.

Selected by Sinem Yoruk on April 25, 2010

In Pause, the work depicts the juxtaposition of powerful machines which are symbols of advancement and technology against nature which is widely accepted as precious and untouched. The medium of photography provides a visual dichotomy of reality and illusion through the aesthetics of plane and tree and their spatial relationship.

Selected by Sinem Yoruk on April 24, 2010

I see and I press the button of my camera to take a photograph, and that’s my comment on life, my comment of how I see, of how I perceive things around me. That’s my response to my social surroundings, my environment, my response to the things that effect me. A bridge between life and myself. Like an instinct embedded deep inside of me. As an individual that’s my saying to the world, an answer. It’s a simple and direct way to be closer to myself, to who I am, to what I’m interested in, what I desire and fear, to my vulnerability.

Selected by Sinem Yoruk on April 23, 2010

This series is the second volume of a trilogy whose main aim is to draw a map of public life through autobiographical scenes and which started with Kaza ve Kader (Accident and Destiny). There is “Nothing Surprising” in these pictures. From streets of suburbs afraid to be torn down for the sake of redevelopment to drunken nights at common bars. From the aftermath of the flood that killed 11 people, to bedrooms of Istanbulites, this series is a narrative about the present time in Istanbul. It is a gaze at that which is ‘common,’ hoping to find traces of stories that create and re-create this place.

Selected by Sinem Yoruk on April 22, 2010

I began shooting ‘Days with my father’ about a year after my mother died. The purpose became clearer, as time progressed. It was to make a still film. An abstract assortment of linked recollections. My father’s stories, and how he told them. His eyes, when he was going to say something funny. His white hair, in the afternoon sun. I wanted to remember the personality that shone through the haze of his fading memory. And I wanted to revel in his humor, that had remained hidden for years in the strong shadow of parenthood. I wanted to record all of this, before he died. To document the love between us, and by reflection, the love we both had for my mother.

Selected by Hannamari Shakya on April 21, 2010