CITIES ON THE MOVE — POST-OTTOMAN

The traveling exhibition “Cities on the Move - Post-Ottoman” uses press photos from southeastern Europe to provide insights into everyday urban life in Ankara, Belgrade, Istanbul, and Sarajevo during the interwar period. These fantastic pictures—barely known until now—come to us from the major Turkish and Yugoslav dailies Cumhuriyet, Yeni Gün, Akşam, Politika, Vreme, and Ilustrovano Vreme. Both images taken by Bosnian photographer Alija Akšamija as well as photographs from the Cengiz Kahraman collection are presented here for the first time.

A fresh look at post-Ottoman urbanity in a European context

In order to be able to see the photographs in their full detail, they have been digitally processed. The exhibition encourages visitors to concentrate fully on looking and to have a go at guessing which city the (thematically arranged) images came from: Istanbul, Ankara, Belgrade, or Sarajevo. In looking closely at these photos, we can question our habituated ways of seeing; we perceive the pictures more as documents of the European interwar period rather than of their specific origin. Detailed information on the photographs can be found in the separate exhibition catalog, while detailed descriptions are also accessible via the scientific database “Visual Archive Southeastern Europe” (VASE). Finally, an installation by Mehmed Akšamija (Sarajevo) invites visitors to take a picture of themselves in front of a historical backdrop.

Perception and history

The exhibition aims to counteract widespread prejudices against the largest group of immigrants in Switzerland by encouraging knowledge about their region of origin and thus better linking exhibition visitors’ perception of European history. In southeastern Europe, the exhibition hopes to stimulate public debate about the region’s Ottoman heritage. It aims to remind visitors not only what divides us but also what we have in common—much of which was lost through the formation of nation states—and thus contribute to better mutual understanding.

International cooperation

The exhibition is part of the SIBA project led by SNSF-funded professor Nataša Mišković. It was developed in collaboration with the Belgrade Museum of Yugoslavia, exhibition designers Igor and Irena Stepančić, and the Bosnian professor of photography Mehmed Akšamija.

Echo

In southeastern Europe, the exhibition became a major public and media success (see press review). It inspired the prominent Croatian-Czech-Yugoslav director Lordan Zafranović to make the documentary Zeitgeist (Duh vremena). In the report produced by Bosnian television on the SIBA project, Nataša Mišković, Lordan Zafranović and Mehmed Akšamija find clear words about the value of handling history and visual documents with care.