beyond the mountains

With his prophet-like style, Ahmet Polat is on a quest for identity, dialogue and stories. At merely 30 years old, Polat has exposed his work in more than twenty exhibitions since 1999, at galleries including Stroom (The Hague), RAM (Rotterdam), the Photo Museum (The Hague), Karsi Sanat (Istanbul), and the most prestigious Turkish art venue, The Istanbul Modern. In 2006, the International Centre of Photography (ICP), the world’s leading photography foundation, has for the first time awarded Turkish photographer Ahmet Polat as “The World’s Best Young Photographer Award”. Polat, by wining the award, showed that he could stand proud in the international arena, along side veteran photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Thomas Rose, and Jeff Krueger. Son of a forcefully adaptive Turkish lorry-driver, Ahmet Polat’s extraordinary realization has naturally placed him as the new Turkish photography torchbearer. “I wasn’t going for it” he commented when we started recording, but still got succ...

Exceptionally few people know about Geert Mak’s latest essay on the Galata Bridge, and more generally on Istanbul. Or few Turks should I add. The complexity of Istanbul’s history invites to read “The Bridge”, a wise reminder orchestred by one of the best contemporary journalist, Dutchman Geert Mak. Following the steps of chroniclers, writers and novelists such as Nazim Hikmet, Oktay Akbal, Rifat Ilgaz, Yasar Kemal, and Resat Ekrem who themselves had written about the Bridge at some point, Geert Mak gives a historical dimension of the Eurasian city’s oldest linking point over the Golden Horn. Known through centuries as Nova Roma, Constantinople or Istanbul, the metropolis cultivates distinct points of views geographically, aesthetically and metaphorically. In this context, Geert Mak reminds us that, to some, the Osman Turks’ takeover in the mid-15th century meant “the day the world ended” while others called the fall of Byzantium, the Conquest of Istanbul. Back then, and still today, ea...

Ithaka Konstantinos Kaváfis (Trad. Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard) As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them: you'll never find the things like that on your way as long as you keep thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony. sensual perfume of every kind- as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in you...

Amid the numerous countries I had the chance to visit in the past 10 years, Brazil is the one I utterly promised myself to return. So I did for a month, bearing in mind that I also wanted to discover new areas and above all, lay a more analytic eye on this magnificent country, which could integrate 280 Belgium’s size-wise. Brazil is big, Brazil is proud and Brazil is becoming one of the most closely watched emerging markets along with China, India and Turkey. Boosting a growth of 5% fuelled among other things by China’s soaring demand, Lula’s Brazil is showing signs of stabilization with a controlled inflation. I had not come back to Brazil in about 6 years, and my first reflex getting there was to “listen to the buzz”, in other words, what are people talking the most about… In Brazil it is rather easy since everybody talks a lot, furthermore in a language that glitters and shines. After some time it appeared quite obvious that Jose Padilha’s movie “Tropa de Elite” had monopolized the ...