Within the framework of the theme ‘Where there is shadow, there must be light’, the 3rd Yeditepe Biennial continues the search for ‘installation’ in the Nuruosmaniye Mosque Cellar. The memory and depth of the spaces of the Yeditepe Biennial, the intertwining of the concepts of place-space-human were decisive in the production methods of the installations.

When the Nuruosmaniye Mosque is considered as a temple structure, the nature of the mosque in the city and the principles of its being a mosque also formed a basis for the holy creator. We consider the mosque as a place of standing and watching, thinking, remembering the creator and deepening in the human being.  Each of the installations that emerged in the light and shadow of the cellar is an invitation to an inner journey about human beings in itself and at the same time as the whole they form.

The artists worked over and over again on the material and immaterial elements of the Nuruosmaniye Cellar and performed their art of installation. Each artist who came into contact with the space was involved not only in an individual production process but also in a collective building practice. Throughout the process, the artists gathered around a table and put forward their ideas on installation in dialogue. In this way, the installations have reached a whole at the final point with the practice of collective production. In the space, what is already there was pursued with a bottom-up approach, not with a top-down interventionist attitude.  In this way, the installations are not only between the space and the participant, but also become a part of the whole and harbour the concern of being a genuine place.

In this biennial, the Nuruosmaniye Mosque Cellar does not appear as an exhibition space, but as a place of contemplation where the relationship of man with himself, with space and with the creator is reconsidered.

Furkan Türkyılmaz