So I want you to picture this. You are walking
down Istiklal Street, right in the really vibrant,
just beating heart of Biyolu in Istanbul. It's
quite the scene. Oh, it's incredibly loud, like
overwhelmingly loud. You've got the famous red
tram just dinging its way through these dense,
dense crowds. The pavement is practically vibrating
with energy. And the sheer volume of modern life
there is just, it's a lot. But then... Nestled
right within all that incredible architecture,
you step through a set of doors. Right. And the
noise of the street just instantly vanishes.
Yeah. You're suddenly standing in this sanctuary,
a space dedicated to memory, to art, and really
to voices that spent a century completely in
the dark. And, you know, that contrast, the contrast
between the chaotic present of a street outside
and that highly curated silence inside, that's
really fundamental to understanding spaces like
this. Yeah, absolutely. Because when we evaluate
cultural institutions, the truly great ones,
they're never just four walls holding up canvases.
Right. They do more. Exactly. They function as
active vessels. They are physical spaces engineered
for societal reflection. They're designed to
pull these forgotten histories out of the archives
and really force them into our contemporary field
of vision. And that concept right there of a
building as an active vessel, that brings us
to our mission for today. We are taking a deep
dive into an extraordinary cultural institution
in Istanbul. It really is extraordinary. We're
going to examine the architectural mysteries
of the space itself, and then we are going to
thoroughly explore. one specific blockbuster
exhibition that, well, it basically attempted
to fundamentally rewrite art history. By mapping
the female psyche directly onto the physical
layout of a building, no less. Right, which is
just brilliant. So, okay, let's unpack this,
starting with the physical space. The institution
is called MISCHER. Yes, because MISCHER is an
art exhibition space, and it's operated by the
private Baby Coast Foundation. Right. As an institution,
it's relatively new. They just opened their doors
back in 2019. Which is funny, because the institution
is new, but the structure it actually occupies
is definitely not. No, not at all. Before 2019,
this exact building housed the Arter, which is
another contemporary art space. But if you start
digging into the foundational bones of the building,
it reveals this really compelling historical
irony. Because according to our source material,
the actual architect of the building is only
speculated to be a man named Petrachi Memoridis
Zafendi. Right. And the fact that the architectural
credit is essentially reduced to speculation,
that sets a really fascinating thematic baseline
for our discussion today. How so? Well, think
about it. We are analyzing an institution whose
most famous exhibition is entirely about unearthing
forgotten creators. Yet the very person who designed
the walls holding that art has essentially been
lost to time. Wow. Yeah, it is a profound irony.
You're standing in a masterpiece, looking at
forgotten masterpieces, housed in a building
whose creator is a historical question mark.
And that tension, that tension between what is
remembered and what fades away, that is clearly
a driving force for the V .B. Coase Foundation.
Especially when you look at what they chose to
name the initiative. The name itself is very
deliberate. Yeah, the word Mesher, it's an Ottoman
Turkish word. In the Arabic script, it's spelled
Ujja or... And it translates literally to just
exhibition. or exhibition space. And, you know,
on the surface, that might seem like a very simple,
literal naming convention, just calling an exhibition
space exhibition. Right. But from a curatorial
perspective, branding a brand new 2019 contemporary
art space with an Ottoman Turkish word, that
is a deeply deliberate choice. But doesn't it
risk coming across as, I don't know, a bit of
a linguistic gimmick, like just slapping an antique
word onto a modern space, give it some false
sense of gravitas? I mean, it would be a gimmick
if the programming didn't. actually support it
fair point but in this case the name acts as
a programmatic bridge By invoking that Ottoman
vocabulary, Mesur is signaling to the visitor
that this space absolutely refuses to sever the
modern Istanbul art scene from its deep, complex
past. So it sets a tone right at the door. Exactly.
It establishes this expectation that the art
inside will be a constant, active conversation
between the historical and the contemporary.
And I don't think that conversation was ever
more apparent than in the centerpiece of their
programming. The exhibition titled Ayyüde. A
century of artist women. Oh, this was a monumental
undertaking, both in its physical scale and its
academic ambition. Yeah. To frame the timeline
for you, this exhibition originally opened on
October 9th, 2021, and it was slated to close
on March 27th, 2022. A standard run initially.
Right. But the cultural footprint of the show
was so substantial, so popular, that the institution
extended its run by an additional two months.
It finally closed on May 29th, 2022. And the
demand for that extension makes total sense when
you look at the parameters the curators set for
themselves. Yeah, they were very specific. Very.
They focused exclusively on female artists who
were based in Turkey and who were active over
a highly precise 100 -year span, from the 1850s
to the 1950s. A full century of lived experience.
A century of immense change, too. Definitely.
And the curators, Deniz Artun, working under
the patronage of Şizdim Samavi, they gathered
over 200 artworks for this exhibition. A massive
collection. But... And this is the detail that
demands real attention here. It's the exhibition
history of those specific pieces. According to
our sources, the vast majority of these 200 works
had never been part of an exhibition before.
Never. Just think about the psychological weight
of that fact. It's heavy. We are talking about
women who dedicated their life to honing their
craft, producing highly technical and deeply
personal work between 1850 and 1950, with the
full knowledge that their art might never leave
their private spaces. They were basically painting
into a void. Exactly. Classic art history essentially
ignored them. And to put a few of these creators
into the room with us, the source's footnotes
provide an extensive list of the featured artists.
You have Ali Berger, Samihal Berksoy, Feral Nisa
Zaid. Incredible names. Hale Esaf, Sabihaboz
Ghali, Yildiz Moran, Mariam Shahinian. And that
is just a mere fraction of the dozens of women
whose life's work was finally validated on those
walls. What's fascinating here is the underlying
motive of the exhibition. The goal wasn't merely
aesthetic display. It wasn't just to make a pretty
room. Right. The co -curator, Ebru Esra Satucha,
outlined a highly academic, almost combative
objective. She stated the exhibition was designed
to reveal these hidden treasures, specifically
to researchers, art historians and scholars specializing.
in women's studies. Yeah, she goes on to say
the intent was for those scholars to conduct
more research on these names and come up with
new finds. Exactly. It reads less like an exhibition
statement and more like a provocation to the
academic community. It is an explicit challenge.
Satucha and the Mescher team are essentially
acting as archaeologists here. They are excavating
the raw artifacts of a forgotten century and
laying them out for the public. Here they are.
Look at them. Yes. But they're also pointing
directly at the academic establishment and demanding
that the history books be rewritten to include
these 200 unseen works. And the way they chose
to present these artifacts is where the curatorial
brilliance really... They didn't just hang 200
paintings chronologically on a white wall. No,
that would be too simple. They utilized the three
distinct floors of the Misher Building to create
a physical journey through the female psyche
and the escalating pressures of societal expectation.
They structured the building as I, you, and they.
A literal spatial mapping of identity. So let's
walk through this structure, starting on the
ground floor. Floor one is titled I. This entire
level is dedicated strictly to the artist's self
-perception. It explores self -discovery, internal
reflections, and it features deeply personal
items like self -portrait photographs. In psychological
terms, this is the foundational self. It is the
identity that exists in a vacuum, completely
devoid of external observation. Like if you were
entirely alone in a room. Who are you? Right.
How do you perceive your own value and your own
narrative before anyone else walks in and demands
something from you? The I floor captures that
raw, unedited version of the artist. It's boundless
because it is entirely self -defined. And this
is the genius part. The exhibition requires you
to physically climb a set of stairs. You literally
have to exert effort to move to the next phase.
Exactly. You ascend to the second floor, which
is titled You. Here, the thematic focus shifts
outward. The art transitions to subjects of the
close environment. Motherhood, children, parents.
So it moves from the internal self to the immediately
adjacent relationships. Which introduces the
concept of the relational self. Identity is rarely
forged entirely in isolation, you know. For women
living and working in Turkey between the 1850s
and 1950s, their societal value was intrinsically
tied to their roles as mothers, daughters, and
caregivers. So the U -floor. explores how these
artists negotiated their own identities through
the lens of those intimate obligations. But does
that relational focus act as an expansion of
their identity or is the beginning of a limitation?
And that is the crucial tension of the second
floor. It is a beautiful exploration of intimacy
and connection. Absolutely. But it also represents
the first layer of external definition. The first
boundary. Yes. The artist is no longer just the
I from the ground floor. Her identity is now
tethered to the you she's caring for. Her canvas
is suddenly occupied by the needs and the presence
of others. Which perfectly sets up the final
ascent. You climb to the third and top floor
of the building. This floor is titled They. The
societal gaze. Yeah, and this is where the atmospheric
pressure of the exhibition really peaks. The
they floor is entirely dedicated to how the broader
society views women, and more specifically, the
subjects that society deemed appropriate for
female artists to paint during that century.
And the source material is quite explicit about
what those acceptable subjects were. Very explicit.
The art on the they floor is dominated by heavily
domestic topics. Flowers, children, food. Plants.
This was the boundary line of acceptable female
expression. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, the architectural narrative Mescher
constructed here is devastatingly effective.
Oh, it really is. look at the progression from
the ground floor to the top floor on floor one
the eye the artist's focus is infinite it is
the unconstrained exploration of her own soul
but as you climb higher the thematic aperture
continually narrows the physical elevation correlates
with a shrinking of creative freedom precisely
by the time you reach floor three the they the
boundless potential of the first floor has been
compressed by society into a mandate to paint
a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers right the
tragedy isn't that they painted flowers. I mean
many of these works are likely technical masterpieces.
Of course. The tragedy is the constraint. It's
the realization that the they of society dictated
the parameters of their legacy. So what does
this all mean? To me, it highlights the absolute
genius of using a building's physical layout
to force a visitor to physically experience the
compounding weight of societal expectations.
You feel it in your legs. You do. You start with
the pure self, you navigate the complexities
of familial duty, and you end up surrounded by
the suffocating domestic expectations of the
societal day. You literally have to labor up
the stairs to feel the burden these women carried
for a century. It's a masterclass in experiential
curation. It proves that Mesher understands how
to use its physical space as an active participant
in the storytelling, not just a passive backdrop.
Yeah. But, you know, to fully understand Mesher
as an institution, we have to look beyond just
Ayude. Their repertoire is remarkably broad,
and examining their other exhibitions reveals
a really complex curatorial strategy. Let's look
at the evidence from the source material for
that. We have to rewind to their inaugural year,
2019. From September 13 to December 22, they
launched an exhibition titled Beyond the Vessel.
And the focus of this show was myths, legends,
and fables in contemporary ceramics around Europe.
That is a fascinating juxtaposition. It feels
like a massive pivot. On one hand, we have a
deeply historical, century -long excavation of
female Turkish painters. On the other hand, we
have contemporary European ceramic fables. Yeah,
it seems disconnected at first glance. It begs
the question, is Mesher just... programming whatever's
available, or is there a cohesive vision connecting
these wildly different mediums and geographies?
The cohesion lies in the concept of the vessel
itself. Whether you are looking at a contemporary
European ceramic piece that holds a myth, or
a 1920s painting by a forgotten Turkish woman
that holds a hidden history, the institution
is focused on how narratives are contained and
transmitted. Oh, I see. And they continue to
bridge disparate narratives in 2020 as well.
Right. Right in the middle of these two shows,
they hosted Alexis Grichanko, The Constantinople
Years. That exhibition ran for a significant
portion of the year, from February 7 to November
1, 2020. So when you synthesize these three data
points, the vision of Mesher becomes undeniably
clear. You have contemporary European ceramics
in 2019. You have the historic Constantinople
years of Alexis Grichenko bridging the European
perspective with the Istanbul location in 2020.
Right. And then you have the monumental unearthing
of female Turkish artists in 2021 and 2022. So
they are operating as a sort of temporal and
geographical crossroads. Exactly. They refuse
to be boxed into a single category. They are
not just a contemporary gallery, and they aren't
just a historical archive. They are actively
cross -pollinating mediums, ceramics, paint,
photography, and dragging the timeline back and
forth from the 1850s to the modern day. Keeping
you on your toes. Yes. By doing so, they force
the visitor to constantly re -evaluate how the
past informs the present. It makes the physical
location on Istiklal Street feel even more appropriate.
Just like the street outside is a chaotic blend
of historical architecture and modern commerce,
the inside of Messier is a curated collision
of time and medium. That's a great way to put
it. But as we wrap up our analysis of these sources,
I really want to pivot the focus directly onto
you, the listener. Because studying an exhibition
like Ayude is a stark reminder of the nature
of history itself. It absolutely shatters the
illusion that history is merely an objective
record of events. History is a curated product.
It is only what is preserved, what is valued
by the establishment, and ultimately what is
brought into the light by people willing to do
the exhaustive research. Exactly. Those 200 artworks
sat unseen for decades, not because they lacked
artistic merit, but because the society of their
time didn't deem them worthy of the they floor.
It forces you to look at your own professional
field or even your own family archives and wonder
what hidden treasures are sitting in the dark
just waiting for someone to curate them. This
raises an important question, and it's a concept
that builds directly on the architectural psychology
we've been discussing today. We have spent this
time analyzing how these female artists were
forced to navigate the increasingly tight spaces
between their internal reality and societal demands.
So I want to leave you with a lingering thought
about your own architecture. How does that? map
onto our lives today. Imagine that a museum like
Mischer decided to curate an exhibition of your
life right now, and they utilize that exact same
three -floor structure. Okay. The ground floor
is A, a collection representing your true, unvarnished
self -perception when you are entirely unobserved.
The second floor is U. representing how your
identity morphs and adapts in relation to your
closest family, friends, and dependents. And
the top floor is they, a display of the professional,
social, and domestic expectations that modern
society has handed to you. That is a heavy thought
experiment. It is, because if you were forced
to walk through that museum of your own life,
you have to ask yourself, would the artifacts
on the they floor reflect the person who exists
on the I floor? Or would it just be the modern
corporate equivalent of painting flowers because
that is what your environment expects of you?
And perhaps the most vital question to consider,
if you were handed the keys to that building,
which floor of your own life would you choose
to spend the most time on? It's a profound question
of alignment. Are the floors of your life in
conversation, or are they in conflict? We will
leave you to explore the floors of your own museum.
Thank you for joining us on this deep drive into
Istanbul's Mesha, the unseen artists of the forgotten
century, and the architecture of identity. Stay
curious, keep excavating the hidden histories
around you, and we will catch you on the next
deep dive.