Port City Talks Istanbul - Antwerp.

MAS antwerp 2015. Paperback with flaps, 290x215mm, 136p, throughout bw and col. illustrations. English edition . ISBN 9789085867142. The MAS takes you on a journey through the Bosphorus & Golden Horn to Istanbul, the legendary city in Turkey and a place to stir the imagination. The exhibition Port City Talks / Istanbul-Antwerp focuses on the decisive role played by the water in Istanbul?s development through centuries to date, highlighting certain points it has in common with Antwerp. Where water and land meet, civilizations meet up ?places where people trade goods, gain access to different worlds and exchange ideas while absorbing diversities. These human interactions, combined with the port infrastructures and new materials such as steel and concrete play an important role in the development of the city and its surrounding area. This is the case in Antwerp and in Istanbul, basically a passage between continents and important ports in history. Istanbul is literally the crossing point between Asia and Europe. For centuries, the port has been seen as the gateway to the East. On the other hand, Antwerp has emerged from being a port city on a river to a leading world port: a gateway to the rest of the world. Both cities have been known for centuries for their bustling commerce and political influence. The exhibition Port City Talks / Istanbul-Antwerp will motivate the audience to walk through the traces of Istanbul, discovering art works and artefacts from different centuries and using multimedia installations, and to discover the Bosporus, its inlet Golden Horn and their hinterland. At the same time, the relation between Istanbul and Antwerp will be explored and the viewer will be invited for individual experiences and inspirations. The first part of the exhibition will show for the very first time in Belgium a selection of archeological objects from Yenikapi, the oldest harbor of Istanbul, in use between the 4th and 11th Century. The following chapters will explore the way people live and travel in both cities and will treat the bridges and tunnels, with Istanbul being famous for its bridges and Antwerp more for its tunnels, the ships, the shipyards and the docks and decks. Objects will come from Turkish and Belgian museums and private collections. A series of digital artists will also create new work for the exhibition and its undoubtedly unusual, promising design. In the frame of Port City Talks, a contemporary Turkish artist will come to AIR Antwerp for a residency project. The artist will explore the thematic of the exhibition and the result will be shown at the MAS.