Midterm Gathering at SAHA Studio

SAHA Studio welcomes audiences to the Midterm Open Studios of its 10th term, which takes place between 25–27 September 2025 at its premises in Istanbul Textile Traders’ Market (İMÇ). The event will create an occasion to follow the developing ideas and provide a glimpse into the creative processes of artists, Can Memişoğulları, Suat Öğüt, Neval Tarım, Gizem Ünlü, and Mk Yurttaş who participate in the July–December 2025 term after being selected through the program’s open call made in last spring. The Midterm Open Studios will also host curator Nikolaos Akritidis, who is currently in Istanbul for a six-week research residency in collaboration with ARTWORKS (Athens). Visitors will have the opportunity to meet Akriditis and learn more about his curatorial inquiries and connections with the local art scene.

SAHA Studio provides its participants with an interactive setting and production budget to develop new research and artistic productions, bringing together practitioners and audiences in Istanbul through open-ended encounters. Located at the İMÇ complex, which has steadily grown into a vibrant cultural hub with its diverse communities and layered history, the program supports artists in experimenting with new ideas, while engaging in dialogue with one another, peers, professionals and audiences for 6 months at each cycle.

Coinciding with the 18th Istanbul Biennial, the midterm open studios event is to offer a unique context for the residents to situate their practices in parallel to this significant art event, while giving the audiences a chance to observe the creative processes of five artists whose works are shaped by different sources, methods, and perspectives.

 25 September 2025, Thursday
15:00 – 19:00 : General visits

26 September 2025, Friday
12:00 – 19:00 : General visits
15:00 – 16:00 : Tour with the artists 
17:00 – 18:00 : Presentation by Nikolaos Akritidis

27 September 2025, Saturday
12:00 – 19:00 : General visits
15:00 – 16:00 : Tour with the artists

About the projects

Can Memişoğulları, who combines sound-centered interventions with digital installations in his practice, is working on a project titled Strategies for the Persistence of Things within the scope of SAHA Studio. As the first stage of the project, Memişoğulları addresses the İMÇ, focusing not only on the market as an architectural structure but also on the changes it has undergone from past to present, its oral memory, and its cultural, economic, and social transitions. He aims to present these intersections and transition points through installations spread throughout the space and a possible mapping.

Suat Öğüt, participating in the program from Amsterdam, places the concept of “property” at the center of Echoes of Silent Murmurs, focusing on protest movements. Using a palimpsest strategy, he constructs an installation composed of new heritage objects, drawing from archives of protest moments where cars, national heritage, and public spaces are reclaimed.

Neval Tarım, who focuses on the relationships between sound, architecture, and memory, is working on the Tahir Paşa Mansion, which burned down in the second half of the 20th century. Tarım addresses the points where her own family archives and personal narratives intersect and diverge from official documents as the conflict area of her project. During the program, she plans to transform the collected audio narratives and visual materials into a fragmented architectural model at SAHA Studio.

Gizem Ünlü, who is interested in the emotional qualities and cultural-historical connotations of everyday materials, objects, and forms, uses material in her practice both as a form of expression and as a carrier of discourse. Throughout the program, she will conduct observations and field research around SAHA Studio and in Unkapanı to investigate how this model of engagement manifests and is experienced in this region. Based on observations and recordings made in shop windows, stores, and craft-related spaces, she plans to produce a narrative in a sculpture-video format that references layers of the social subconscious.

Mk Yurttaş shapes his practice around the concept of “posthuman,” aiming to create structures open to discussion and reinterpretation, articulation, and branching out with collectivity and new production methodologies. Within the scope of SAHA Studio, he focuses on the new chapter of his research, which began in 2023 with the BAS Artist Publications Collection under the title “UNVEIL.” Yurttaş examines the data from the projects supported by SAHA over the past 14 years through three key concepts: “perform” (for performance, performativity, performance), ‘human’ (for post-human, non-human, posthuman), and “body.”