Fotoistanbul;
Is an open festival for everyone to celebrate cultural diversity.
Presents photography within coincidental relationships; strips it off the walls and liberates it from rules, definitions and commercial ambitions.
Is the voice of freedom with its loud participants, long-standing venues, striking contents and asymmetrical presentation.
Embraces photography as it is, rather than depending on concepts, movements and expertise.
Is the largest international photography festival of Turkey that transforms the oldest city of the world; which has long joined East and West; into a platform to unite all photography enthusiasts.
Welcomes both the classic and the modern, both the young and the master and all other disciplines of photography.
Goes outside! Outside the galleries; to reach everyone by transforming everyday streets, containers and deserted areas into places of connection through collective experience of art.
Treats photograph as a daily component of the streets and everyday venues; letting it to be assimilated into its surroundings.
Photographs of any language, of any color meet every eye that gazes at this city in the noise of diversity.
Uninvitedly, in an inviting way,
Meet us at the streets.
With photography,
Again...
For the first time this year, Fotoistanbul invites everyone to special workshops on different disciplines and techniques of photography.
"Visual Expression with Murathan Özbek" Workshop
October 9th
In this workshop, you will discover the power of visual expression in changing the world and reinvent your own truths with the photographs of your own production. These photographs will also be exhibited at Fotoistanbul.
"Cyanotype" Workshop
October 13th / October 21th
You will discover and perform the Cyanotype method, a “sun print” technique, with Burcu Böcekler and have the opportunity to produce both camera-less photographs and create contact prints. Your prints will also be exhibited at Fotoistanbul.
Click here to apply and see details.
"What the heck is Lomography?" Workshop
October 14th / October 19th
Given by the Lomographers, this workshop will introduce you to Lomography movement, its cameras and shooting techniques. You will also have the chance to shoot with one of the Lomography cameras and feel proud to see your photographs exhibited at Fotoistanbul.
Click here to apply and see details.
"Documenting Beşiktaş With Lomokino" Workshop
October 15th
Presented by Metin Çavuş, you will glance at Beşiktaş from a point of view of a moviemaker with Lomography’s 35mm camera LomoKino. The resulting clips of the workshop will be made into a short film.
Click here to apply and see details.
Fotoistanbul is turning a new leaf by including the leading galleries of Istanbul in its fourth year of the festival. Our partnership with these galleries in the framework of photography month will continue for years to come. At this year's festival, Fotoğrafevi will present "A Brief Promenade on the Island" exhibition by Engin Güneysu, Michael Kenna at O'art Art Platform with "Japon Forms", Fototrek Olympus Gallery presents Ozan Sağdıç with ‘’Departed Stars of Our World of Culture’’, Can Sarıçoban will be at Gama Gallery with his exhibition "Stranger At the Bar" and Istanbul Photography Gallery, with the exhibition ''Our Nature'' by Erhan Şermet, Art Galerim Bebek will display "Shooting a Photograph? or making a Photograph?" with Dinçer Dökümcü, M. Cevahir Akbaş, Burcu Böcekler, Nazlı Tuhera Moral ve Kerimcan Gören by group exhibition, "Sense of Movement" by Kürşat Bayhan, Çağdaş Erdoğan, Furkan Temir ve Murat Şaka by group exhibition will meet art lovers at Gallery Mixer, will be one of the few highlights of the festival.
Holland is this year's guest of honor in Fotoistanbul. As a society of a profound arts and culture, Holland has also been home to many important photographers, such as Anton Corbijn, Erwin Olaf, Ruud van Empel, Rineke Dijkstra, Bertien van Manen, Ed van der Elsken, who have contributed to world photography with their new perspectives. Dutch photography, prominent with its own language and its sense of colour, is amongst the leading centres of innovative photography in the world. In our festival, where we've had previous guests in the past years, such as Ruud van Empel and Bertien van Manen. This year, five Dutch photographers, Alex Timmermans, Annabel Oosteweeghel, Marieke van der Velden, Eddo Hartmann and Peter Edel will be featuring with their exhibitions and Evelien Kunst will meet with photography enthusiasts at her workshop. We'd like to demonstrate our gratitude to Dutch Royal Family and Dutch Embassy in İstanbul for their contributions.
Fotoistanbul an organization maintaining strong partnerships with photography events and institutions worldwide has a strong motive to bring notable works of art to Istanbul. Therefore Fotoistanbul will be hosting the winner of the first ever winner of the Robert Capa Grand Prize with a special exhibition of the Viola Fatyol’s winning series titled "If you have a heart, what you did to me, hurt you too"
She will meet the photography enthusiasts at Fotoistanbul and her awarded pictures will be on show to celebrate Capa’s world-wide achievements and to support new talents of photography. Our cooperation with the Capa Center will long continue in future years to come.
Fotoistanbul, with the motivation to create a collective platform for photography in Istanbul, continues to support international photography events and acts to help them meet more enthusiasts around the world. Our strong cooperation with Stenin Contest will keep improving as we will build this great platform to reach more enthusiasts every year.
Stenin Contest, organized in the memory of the photojournalist Andrei Stenin, who lost his life on duty, accepts applications on photographer’s birthday and aims to discover new talents in the field of photojournalism. It is Russia’s only platform purposely aimed at discovering new photojournalists and supporting and encouraging high standards of documentary photography in Russia and the around world. With more than 6000 applications from 71 different countries, the contest’s winner will be announced in September. As Fotoistanbul, we are proud to present that the Grand Prix winner Spanish artist Alejandro Martinez Velez, Sport series winner Russian artist Alexei Flippov, My Planet series winner Russian artist Pavel Volkov’s works will be exhibited at Fotoistanbul throughout October. You can see the works of the finalists in the link below.
