‘Foto Galatasaray – Studio Practice by Maryam Şahinyan’ | 2011

by Tayfun Serttas

Foto Galatasaray, founded in the beginning of the Republic and lasted continuously until 1985 sheds light onto the history of the photograph studio. All through her career, Maryam Sahinyan witnessed with her camera a wide range of demographical and sociological transformations, significant historical events such as 1942 Wealth Tax, the events of 6-7 September 1955, War in Cyprus in 1974, and the most vehement years of migration from country to the city. Leaving an archive of 200,000 negatives behind, she presents a visual projection of a whole history of the republic.

Prepared under the direction of Tayfun Serttas, artist/researcher, the book includes nearly a 1000 negatives from the archive of Foto Galatasaray, which reached from the classical photography studios of Istanbul’s recent past to the present times. Enriched with the introductions by Vasıf Kortun, the director of SALT Research and Program and writer Karin Karakasli, the book presents the photographs in the archive under various topics:  “Cultural Representation”, “Gender”, “Migration and Change”, “Idealized Infant Bodies” and “Reflections of Fahsion”.

With her old photographic camera with bellows from the times of the first World War, Maryam Şahinyan captures countless things in  fifty years time. Catholic clerics who would be cleared off the demogrpahical map of the city in a couple of decades, Armenian sisters, Jewish boys becoming bar mitzvah, Greek young girls having a souvenir photograph taken, Russians escaping from Bolshevik Revolution and taking refuge in Istanbul, opera singers, musicians, country people dwelling in Istanbul…

Foto Galatasaray is a call for writing once again the past of Istanbul that changes day by day. The history of Istanbul flows through the lens of Maryam Sahinyan, one of the first woman studio photographers…

Publishing House : Aras Yayınclık
Book Languages : Turkish – English
Translation: Merve Ünsal
ISBN : 978-605-5753-25-2
Book Properties : Coated Paper, 22×25 cm.
Edition Date : 328 pages, 928 Illustrations, 1st edition, November 2011
Design: Eray Makal