Istanbul. September 16

Today we went to the Karakoy district, which is in south Beyoglu, in the area shouldering the Bosphorus. Elise was keen to go here as it houses the majority of contemporary art galleries and sites, which was extra important while we were visiting because the Istanbul Biennale is on. Even more amazing was that she had just found out that there was an exhibition called ‘Concrete’ that had come from, and been put together by the curator of MONA which was the gallery her university, Monash. The exhibition was in an old cannon foundry which is now a culture and arts centre called Tophane-I Amire. Some of her teachers were part of the exhibition, which was super weird and fun.

Callum Morton

We walked down to the Istanbul Modern which houses an amazing collection of contemporary art and is also a site for the biennale. We spent a while here because it was super fun before heading back up to Istiklal avenue.

Olafur Eliasson

Tomas Saraceno

We got a late kumpir lunch before taking the metro to the Taksim area for a couple of hours of wandering. When it began to get dark, we made our way (and also got lost) to the Hermes store as NONOTAK, a sound and light installation and performance duo, had recently been invited to do some window installations to coincide with the Biennale. We had seen NONOTAK’s installations and performance in January at Sugar Mountain festival , which had been amazing, so knew it was going to be pretty good. It was. Like, super amazing. Especially the enamel bracelet window, such a dream!

We walked home after this via Taksim square, which took a while but it was nice.

Love A&E
xxx