Turkey’s prominent photographer presents book on Istanbul

ISTANBUL

Timurtaş Onan, a key figure of contemporary photography in Turkey, has published his new photography book “Istanbul: A City of Strange and Curious Moments,” offering a retrospective selection of his works between 2000-2020.

Onan has gained considerable popularity for his different projects that featured Istanbul in different light and perspective.

Since the 1980s, when he started taking photographs, he has framed Istanbul many times through his lens, leading audiences around the city’s venues. This time around, he is leading his audiences to different places of change.

In the book, he presents to us the frames he recorded in his visual memory with details from the streets of Istanbul, takes us to a place that we do not remember - the time we walked past, to a memory that we do not exactly remember - the time we went through. As subjective as it is, these frames are fragments of the common memory we share.

While we look at these photos and feel many similar feelings about the city of İstanbul together, perhaps what looms large is the change and transformation that we have witnessed socially. How did we face the numerous transformations and changes between 2000 and 2020, and how do we still face them? He interprets a periodic truth as if broadcasting a black and white movie.

Onan also interprets the language of this past time, the everyday world, marking the change, which is the only thing that will not change. He transfers the sociocultural change of Istanbul -- through ages and life along with it - to the future with visual records of this change.

When we turn the pages of the book, we travel through Istanbul -- the city of contrasts, the city of light and shadow. We not only observe a personal inner world, but we are also made to remember something from our experiences and changes in the past, and we get immersed in its conversation.

“Istanbul: A City of Strange and Curious Moments,” accompanied by the city’s flaws and uniqueness, is limited to 300 copies.