Monday 29 October

We arrived in Istanbul evening to find a more subdued than expected 84th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey which had been moved at the last minute to the Asian side of the city.

Upon arriving we took a minibus straight to The Apartment Project to meet with its founder and director Selda Asal who runs the space with the two other artists Ceren Oykut and Neriman Polat.

After introducing ourselves and our organisations, Selda talked about the history of Apartment Project, its past and current projects including their project 2+1 which is one of the Special Projects as part of the Istanbul Biennial. She also spoke about the structure of her organisation, how they are funded, their relationship to the Biennial as well as her own practise. During the discussion she showed us some video documentation of their recent projects.

Afterwards they took us to dinner in their local restaurant. This was a good opportunity for the group to meet and relax and find out more about each other’s work.