During centuries Çanakkale has been a host for many civilizations and has witnessed two great World Wars. It first takes a historical stage with the city Trojan. The Trojan War is seen as the first great war in the world by historians. As we all know the second one is the Gallipoli Wars. Actually all through history Çanakkale was seen as a gate to Anatolia. It is interesting that this piece of land established on the shores of Çanakkale strait is always remembered with two great wars. In contemporary Turkey, Çanakkale is one of the provincial cities as if forgotten after the World Wars and withdrew from the stage. If we put aside the antique era Çanakkale is always off the path. As Ottomans made attempts to take İstanbul, the city had just been built between the two castles by itself. Between the two castles near the strait, Kilitbahir and Çimenlik flourished. And after İstanbul was conquered Çanakkale lost its importance again. In 1840 and 1843 population census we see that there were four muslim and three non-muslum neighbourhoods; Rumiyan, Ermaniyan and Yahudiyan neighbourhoods. (Greek, Ermenian and Jewish) This land that has witnessed the most bloody battles during the first World War was also affected by the changes caused by the problems between countries. Especially during the process that started with the Lozan treaty and Kıbrıs situation the non-muslim community left Çanakkale. Today we can only see the deserted buildings left from those three neighbourhoods. Now they are being transfered to modern buildings and some of them are being restored. Some of the photos in the exhibition belongs to İmroz which was forced to migration and some photos belong to the olive oil factories which were ran by the greeks. And the rest belongs to the minorities that used to live in the city. Forgotten for years, this provincial city now is affected by İstanbul spreading uncontrollably like a cancer. The Kanal İstanbul Project, the new bridge considered for the Çanakkale strait, the mining in Ida Mountains and as Erdoğan says Çanakkale could be the second İstanbul, now it is the center of attraction for investors. Nowadays the city is covered with shopping malls and apartments instead of houses with gardens.

Biography
Aykan Özener was born in 1964 in Balıkesir. He graduated from Univeristy of Selçuk, Archeology Department. His master thesis was on Photography Techniques in Archeology Science. He started working on photography in 1983. He became a member of Ankara Photography Artists Society (AFSAD) in 1987 and had started his quest in photography. After 1995 he continued to work on photography independently. He had solo exhibitions, seminars and had his photographs and articles published in various art magazines. He organized Çanakkale 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Photography Festival. He is an educator on photography in Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University. He is also the chairman of Pan Visual Art Society in Çanakkale and the editor of the Actuel Archeology Magazine.