Jennifer Hattam

Istanbul

Journalist covering enviro, social, urban issues + art, culture, travel. Available for assignments: jenhattam (at) gmail (dot) com https://t.co/ySsJmW0vRS

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Articles

Protests, Culture, and Power

3 weeks ago | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

Swept up in the masses of people pushing their way down a broad city street toward the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) headquarters, part of the largest wave of protests in Turkey since the Gezi Park resistance in 2013, the cultural legacy of those earlier demonstrations was impossible to miss.
What's on: Snow day diversions and early algorithmic art

2 months ago | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

The promised snowpocalypse hasn’t (yet) fully materialized in Istanbul, but many events in the city have been cancelled or postponed in anticipation of a weekend whiteout and some venues are closing or limiting their opening hours over the next few days. The New and Newest Music Festival at ARTER, a Michael Snow film series at Istanbul Modern, and concerts at the Pera Museum are just a few of the events that are not happening this weekend.
Remembering 6 February 2023

2 months ago | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

On the second anniversary earlier this month of the devastating 6 February 2023 earthquakes, 30 artists from Antakya, one of the hardest-hit cities, hung their paintings on the exposed interior walls of one of the many buildings still lying in ruins.
What's On: Into The Void, musical moods, Urban Artifacts, and more

2 months ago | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

Perched on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus north of the second bridge, a cluster of large, weathered metal cylinders makes for an incongruous sight amidst the green hills and fine wooden mansions more commonly associated with the famous strait.
The Material Is the Message in States of Earth

2 months ago | hyperallergic.com | Jennifer Hattam

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, please join us as a member. ISTANBUL — In Cengiz Tekin’s 2012 photograph “Sand,” a man hangs a picture of a sunset on the wall of a small, sparsely furnished room where two spindly potted plants sit on a floor covered with sand.
What's On: New narratives, tiny books and prints, international films, and short takes

Jan 24, 2025 | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

Anyone who has spent time in Turkey will recognize the word that opens this group exhibition: “Arıza.” Meaning “malfunction” or “defect,” it’s often plastered on out-of-order turnstiles or toilet stalls.
Images of Urban Defiance

Jan 17, 2025 | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

Once known as “Green Bursa” for the forests surrounding its great peak Uludağ and its lush landscaping in Ottoman times, Turkey’s fourth-largest city has become famously smothered in concrete as its population soared from a half million people in the 1950s to more than 3.2 million today.
What's on in Istanbul: 10 January 2025

Jan 10, 2025 | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

Deities from ancient Mesopotamian mythology and motifs with strong symbolic value in the artist’s hometown of Mardin – among them pigeons, serpents, and keys – predominate in this Istanbul solo exhibition, named after the Kurdish word meaning “mourning” or “blue” but also related to the word for “life.” The warm limestone of Mardin’s historical buildings turns blue in Kılıç’s architectural cyanotype prints, a process he also applies to cloth to populate the gallery with ethereal figures.
Mabrouk, Syrians

Dec 9, 2024 | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

When I first moved to Turkey, its neighbor to the south was still a place where people would go for cultural tourism or to learn Arabic (I will always sorely regret not visiting a friend while she was studying in Damascus back then). Within a few years, though, the Syrian revolution had begun, quickly spiraling into a prolonged, brutal war that sent millions fleeing for their lives.
What's on in Istanbul (30 November 2024)

Nov 29, 2024 | istanbuletcetera.substack.com | Jennifer Hattam

If you think you’re seeing birds everywhere you turn inside this gallery space, it’s no coincidence: the title of the exhibition refers to a creation myth describing a time before the beginning of the world when there was no land, only birds flying above an endless sea.