Istanbul Street Style

Back again after a long time, but i had one very good reason to go missing, and its called istanbul street style!

About a month ago, by the power given to me by google search and email, i met an amazing person named Dano Alexander.

In a nutshell, for Dano everything about this project started with his blog, http://www.istanbulstreetstyle.com, on which he featured photographs of the many interesting figures on the streets of istanbul. He really captures the uniqueness of these figures without getting caught up on who they are, where they come from or where and how they get their clothes. The most important thing is that these people are capable of freely expressing themselves all the superficial details aside..
To make the long story short, the idea behind the blog gets bigger and bigger and ends up becoming a monthly event called Sahane* in which i as well am involved as a curator/art director.
Our first Sahane* event happened recently at the Hall. Now that I have mentioned the Hall, I need to give a little more detail about the space cause its even more sahane… The Hall is an event space located behind Emek Sinemasi, which used to be a church. Magnet Istanbul took this beautiful structure and turned it into an amazing event arena with multiple rooms, gallery space, main dance floor and etc.. So we really had to give its worth to this space and i truly believe that we did. Within the show, there were two catwalks that 12 extremely talented emerging fashion designers displayed their collections. Along with that the gallery space featured 25 new and established artists (photographers, illustrators, painters, stylists, painters, conceptual artists), which added up to about 200 pieces of beautiful artwork. Besides all the art and fashion, there was also Ari Alpert’s stencil performance, a live cooking show by Dilara Erbay, the creative showcase Magicbox and many more!

There is a lot I can say about this event but it wouldn’t do the justice.. Istanbul has been longing for events like this for a long time.. Come visit us at our May 12th show and share the experience…

If you are an artist reading this you can contact us at istanbulstreetstyle@gmail.com, preferably with a link to ur portfolio.

Those of you who missed this show, please see the continuation of this show at the Levi’s Gallery in Beyoglu.

banu-n-between

Places to go, Things to do

I’m in my last weeks now here in Istanbul (well last, i’m coming back for sure;) and just before I leave amongst other things there will be a few event’s I’ll be involved in. So get you’re agenda’s ready, and hop by if you like.

#1

First I’m proud to annouce that Difüzyon will rock Istanbul with another dörtyüzsaniye. This second edition comes after the -above expectations- successful first edition at SekSek. The first one was such a succes, that SekSek was to small to house the audience. So sadely we had to send people home. That chance won’t be so big this time cause we’ll be hosting dörtyüzsaniye numero 2 in Studio Live. The please is big enough to house, let’s say 1000 people. Check out there pics on the website it’s a great venue just off Istiklal. Keep checking the Difüzyon site for updates and also if you (still) don’t have a clue what this dörtyüzsaniye thing is.

#2

We’ll I think I don’t need to say much about this one. I’ll be screening it at my School, the Architecture Faculty of ITU a.k.a Taşkışla together with Sleep[less] Taşkışla, check their website for more info.

#3

We’ll this is the most scary one 😉 1st of February, Art Fag (a.k.a me with mi compadre Caglar) we’ll play back2back @ Babylon, before and after Alec Empire (Atari Teenage Riot)
We’ll play some Dirty Electro, Minimal Italo Disco, 8-bit Polkadot and other weird shit from our digital archives.

So see you around, ciao!

Difüzyon: fourhundredseconds | Archis: Lebanon Unbuilt

Sorry for not informing/posting anything on the blog for so long, there was enough reseaon. After all the reflections on my stay in Istanbul/Turkey, there now is action! One project here in Istanbul and one in Beirut Lebanon.

Together with some students of Taşkışla, the Architecture Faculty of ITU (Istanbul Technical University) we founded Difüzyon (the word means diffusion) and are organizing our first event ‘fourhundredseconds‘:

dörtyüzsaniye
14 katılımcının, seçilmiş bir çalışmalarını projeksiyon eşliğinde 6 dakikada, sundukları tasarım bazlı etkinliktir. Tüm sunumlarla beraber 125 dakika süren dörtyüzsaniye, çeşitli tasarım alanlarını bir araya getirmeyi ve bir kolaj oluşturmayı amaçlar. Böylelikle mimarlık, moda, fotoğraf, video, grafik, endüstriyel tasarım gibi yaratıcı işlerin yer alacağı dörtyüzsaniye’ de kendi işlerinizi tanıtabilir ve diğer bir çok alanla etkileşime geçebilirsiniz.

fourhundredseconds
14 designers, each presenting their projects in 6 minutes and 40 seconds (400 sec). In a saturated one and a half hour, you will get a sample of the full spectrum of Istanbul’s rich creative culture. A common ground for architects designers, artists, culture producers and other creatives to meet, exchange ideas and hopefully some phone numbers.

PERŞEMBE 19:30, 21.12.2006, GİRİŞ ÜCRETSİZ
Seksek Taksim, Sakızağa Cad. Yoğurtçu İş Merkezi No:19 K:4

Difüzyon Nedir?

Difüzyon kent, mimarlık, moda, güncel ve amatörün altını çizen bir etkinlik grubudur. Yaratıcı kültürü arar ve bir araya gelmesini amaçlar. Oluşturduğu kolajın, tasarım çevresinin özgün değerlerini tanımlaması ve bir birleriyle verimli ilişkilere geçmesini umar.

Temel olarak Taşkışla çevresinin bir araya getirdiği profesyoneller ve öğrencilerin içinden çıkan bir grubun hevesli birlikteliğidir difüzyon. Bu organizasyon ise yapı olarak tabandan yayılan ve açık kaynak bir düzeni benimser.

What is Difüzyon?

The initiative for this platform comes from a group enthusiasts that has emerges from the Taşkişla community (students or professionals) in Istanbul. Taşkisla is a focal point for many young creatives in the field of architecture and design in general.

Difüzyon is not an official organisational body, The organization is characterized by an D.I.Y (Do-it-yourself) attitude and a ‘bottom-up’ and/or ‘open source’ approach. Difüzyon is an open ended project, fueled by the initiative of young creativesives

Besides Istanbul I have also been in Beirut, Lebanon:

As a part of the Archis team I was in there gathered with architects, designers and artists from Beirut and from the Netherlands the Pearl Foundation and Partizan Publik. We where in Beirut for an event titled: Unbuilt Beirut, or more broadly Unbuilt Lebanon. After some field trips to the Southern suburbs, and the South of Lebanon in and around Bint Jbeil, we addressed aftermath of what architects, designers and artists can do in the aftermath of violence, destruction, political division and very little perspective of immediate improvement. After the horror of war and disorienting denial there is more need for creative power than ever, to defuse the explosive society of Lebanon, to find common ground, common space and place. Establish platforms for dialogue, and shared perspective to aim for. The creative intellectuals of the society are key players in generating common space and perspective through generating concepts, practices and images beyond the imagination of a society in distress. Now on the Unbuilt blog, we are gathering these creative works so badly needed.Together with Archis I was in Beirut gathered with architects, designers and artists from Beirut and from the Netherlands the Pearl Foundation and Partizan Publik. We where in Beirut for an event titled: Unbuilt Beirut, later enlarged to Unbuilt Lebanon. After some field trips to the Southern suburbs, and the South of Lebanon in and around Bint Jbeil, we addressed aftermath of what architects, designers and artists can do in the aftermath of violence, destruction, political division and very little perspective of immediate improvement. After the horror of war and disorienting denial there is more need for creative power than ever, to disfuse the the explosive society of Lebanon, to find common ground, common space and place. Establish platforms for dialogue, and shared perspective to aim for. The creative intellectuals of the society are key players in generating common space an perspective through generating concepts, practices and images beyond the imagination of a society in distress. Now on the Unbuilt blog, we are gathering these creative works so badly needed.

There are also some pictures: on flickr