SAHA positions the historical watchtower Galata Tower situated just across from SAHA office, as the symbolic weather station of Istanbul. Within the scope of the World Weather Network, SAHA collaborates with m-est.org (ed. Merve Ünsal, Özge Ersoy) to commission seven artists and artist collectives to report on the weather through their artistic practices in text-based works as well as public programming spread across Turkey. Under the editorship of m-est.org, SAHA Art Writing series aims to address artistic strategies to measure, report, fabulate, and tell stories about the weather, air flows, circulation, and other high to low pressure aspects our practices and cities.

SAHA invited three artists, namely Elmas Deniz, Can Küçük, and Burcu Yağcıoğlu in residency at SAHA Studio in Istanbul between May 2022 and March 2023 and commissioned them artworks, texts, and public programmes within the scope of the World Weather Network. Furthermore, SAHA has commissioned photographer Yusuf Sevinçli a report on Istanbul’s ever-expanding topography and urban ecology, by recording the fast-eroding nature and alien sceneries of its peripheries under heavy industrialization. The series was premiered in January 2023 on SAHA’s and London Review of Books’ Instagram before SAHA Studio Open: World Weather Network held on 17-21 March 2023. Exhibiting the resident artists’ new artworks along with texts published by m-est.org and London Review of Books, SAHA Studio Open showcased a selection of digital and moving image projects by the international partners of the network.

Furthermore, SAHA’s director Çelenk Bafra produces and presents a monthly radio interviews with artists and writers on “Hariçten Sanat” [Art from the Exterior], a weekly culture & arts programme on Açık Radyo – a broadcast, internet and podcast community radio, that has been actively engaged in gathering and sharing scientific information and evidence of the devastating changes in the world’s atmosphere, oceans, ice cover, land, and biodiversity due to the climate crisis.

Participating Artists & Writers: Merve Ünsal, Özge Ersoy, Elmas Deniz, Burcu Yağcıoğlu, Can Küçük, Yusuf Sevinçli, Yasemin Nur, İz Öztat, Özgür Demirci & Monica Papi, Wing Chan

Commissioned by SAHA for World Weather Network.

SAHA

SAHA was founded to support artists, curators, and writers working in visual arts from Turkey in improving their production and learning environments, and to enhance their interactions with international art institutions and networks. Since 2011, SAHA has supported approximately 550 artists, curators, writers, and art initiative projects in museums and art institutions in 46 countries. Conceived by SAHA as a co-working space in Istanbul and a studio & residency programme for artists and curators, SAHA Studio focuses on providing art professionals from Turkey and abroad opportunities for research and production.