Wintersemester 2009/10,

Memory Istanbul (78 memory game cards)

The main focus of the project is Istanbul's diversity and heterogeneity in a time when the city emerges as a “world city”, thus questioning the current social processes in the city. Considering the uncontrolled development, increased gentrification and foreign investment, in the city are to be found clearly separated areas and lifestyles, for instance, conservative/modern, poor/rich, dangerous/safe, men/women etc.

The project started with taking photographs from everyday life situations and public spaces from different parts and neighborhoods of Istanbul: streets, people sitting in a bar, buildings, shops etc. and resulted with creating memory game cards out of them. However, unlike the real memory game, where images of same motives match, these cards make a pair with its opposite connotation. For instance, an image of a street from a conservative neighborhood and from a modern one. In addition, the composition of the matching motives is very similar (same distance of taking a photo, same constellation of objects), thus on the first view a difference is hardly to be made. With this, I aim to bring together what usually, in the reality, would not match and to highlight the “differences” and “similarities” in Istanbul’s everyday life.