WITH A TEAM OF INTERNATIONAL CURATORS, ARTISTS AND CONSULTANTS
The exhibition at MAS in Antwerp was organized within the context of the Europalia Arts Festival 2015 and focused on the cities of Antwerp and Istanbul in their roles as port cities. Geographically, at least, both cities are located at frontier points of Europe: Antwerp is at the west end, by the Atlantic, and Istanbul is the threshold to the East, situated literally on the crossroads between Europe and Asia. Major quest of the curatorial process was to answer the question; “What does a port mean for a city?”. The narrative of the exhibition is based on discovering the relationships between the ports and their hinterlands by simultaneously highlighting Istanbul’s and Antwerp’s landmarks and maritime entities. Comprising works produced largely by young artists, the exhibition, in which objects are placed in a multimedia setting, explores what a port and the presence of water means for the two cities. Walking through Istanbul, a transit city in continual transition, THE exhibition aims to introduce alternative views of the two cities, redefined by artists’ points of views, enriched with archaeological objects and historical material. The digital works appear on the inner walls of the light, white construction, an abstraction of Istanbul’s shoreline.
