I write this from my apartment feeling a little worse for wear. We have been loving the nightlife in Istanbul and spent last night at two of our favourite rooftop bars in Taksim on the European side of town. We have to get a Dolmus (like a mix between a bus and a taxi) which costs 6 lira to get there and it takes about 40 minutes from our street, we met some friends who we got to know over the weekend at an erasmus event...a boat party that set sail from Beskitas and sailed down the Bosphorus, great fun! The night life here is very good, it seems for clubs you go to Taksim and you can find more chilled out bars pretty much anywhere. We have some nice looking places on our street that we're going to try over the weekend, I really enjoy the laid back bar culture as well as the clubs. They play some really great music out and about, it's normally latin and world music based which I'd not listen to on my own but it's great to dance to! Everybody here can salsa dance, we're going to have to learn!
Workwise I know what I want to start doing but at the moment it's critical to get my dissertation in so that has overtaken things once again, it's almost finished and I hope to get it sent back over the weekend then I can really focus on my studio work. I'm going to revisit some screen prints that I produced in first year that used light and landscape and produce some centred on Istanbul, and perhaps mosque interiors. I'm also going to continue with making fabric sail sculptures, I'm going to learn how to weave my own fabrics and my colour palette will be based on hues I feel reflect the city, I then want to install these sails around the coast line near our flat and other locations and photograph them. I also want to use found objects in these sculptures so have been scavenging for materials to incorporate.
I feel like I know certain parts of the city very well but there are so many areas that I've not been to, I just finished reading Orhan Pamuk's 'Istanbul Memories and the City' and he speaks a lot about the districts he grew up in and used to frequent as an artist and writer, I'd like to visit these areas having read about them. He writes a lot about what he calls 'huzun' or the melancholy of Istanbul relating to the fall of the Ottoman empire and how parts of the city became very dilapidated and run down, this melancholy isn't as apparent in tourist areas like Taksim and Sultahnamet so I'm intrigued to visit these more run down areas of the city to compare the atmosphere and photograph the more physical differences.
You have your priorities right - tell us about the nightlife/social side and then onto the work - keep it up!! Glad to hear you are having such a fabby time - time sees to be flying past.
ReplyDeleteLots of love from the Mags xxx