In Conver­sation: Karin Karakaşlı, Tayfun Serttaş and Vasıf Kortun

“Film Forgotten to Be Put Back in Place”

The only first-hand information concerning the relationship between photographer Maryam Şahinyan and the archive of her fifty-year-old studio, Foto Galatasaray, is a label on a box of FORTE film reading “Film Forgotten to Be Put Back in Place”. Belonging to Şahinyan, the creator and subject of the studio archive, the box is a collection of film from different dates and of varying sizes. It presents a random cross-section of the archive, while at the same time attesting to the incredible meticulousness and discipline with which the photographer carried out her work.

Karin Karakaşlı, Tayfun Serttaş and Vasıf Kortun, all witnesses to the fact that the Foto Galatasaray archive was forgotten — that is has yet to be returned to its proper place within the layers of history — come together on the occasion of SALT’s first Open Archive exhibition to discuss the studio’s hidden subject, Maryam Şahinyan. Foto Galatasaray is open at SALT Galata from November 22, 2011 to January 22, 2012. In the context of the conversation, the authors of Foto Galatasaray – Studio Practice by Maryam Şahinyan (Aras Publishing, 2011) will also address issues of displacement in İstanbul’s historical and cultural layers.

Yetvart Tomasyan, owner of Aras Publishing and the individual responsible for preserving the Foto Galatasaray archive to this day, along with members of the Şahinyan family and Maryam Şahinyan’s friends, will be among the conversation’s audience, where possible methods of tracing İstanbul’s history in tandem with the personal history of a photographer will be discussed in light of the archive’s impressive chronology.

Karin Karakaşlı

From 1996 to 2006, Karakaşlı worked as editor, editor-in-chief and columnist at Agos, a weekly newspaper published bilingually in Turkish and Armenian. She co-edited Armenians in Turkey: Community, Individual, Citizen (2009) with Günay Göksu Özdoğan, Füsun Üstel and Ferhat Kentel. Karakaşlı is a faculty member in Yeditepe University’s Department of Translation Studies; she also teaches Armenian literature at Getronagan Armenian High School. Currently, she is a columnist for Radikal 2.

Tayfun Serttaş

Tayfun Serttaş is an artist and author. He is the researcher of the Foto Galatasaray project, and editor and co-author of Foto Galatasaray – Studio Practice by Maryam Şahinyan (2011).

Vasıf Kortun

Director of Research and Programs, SALT