SEN, Murat Yusuf - Islak Kent / Wet City

Background information

'Murat Yusuf SEN photographed for 'Wet City / Islak Kent' the metropolis of Istanbul as a city in progress, an enormous construction site in the building sector, representing the image of a city where the past has disappeared in front of a permanent present and future. B&W shots on plates with visible processing marks (the path of liquids is visible in many places), perhaps to make them look like material cultural objects - memory carriers found during an excavation or in an old archive, are the final result of almost all his works. At the same time, the contrast of image and material (rapid building development / slow photographic procedure) projects a gloomy, depressive reality, but also a city that is already beginning to sink." (freely translated, © Theodore Markoglou, curator of the Photobiennale Thessaloniki, where the project was shown at the last Photofest, 2018)

Book review and content

"The photobook 'Wet City / Islak Kent' is Murat SEN's contribution to the urban development of the Turkish metropolis. In an artistic way, he contrasts the rapid change with the slow development process in early analog photography (the collodion wet process from the mid-19th century). The result, which also gives the finished publication something particularly object-like, is a somber effect in the images. In addition to the pictures, there is also text material inserted in the book in Turkish as well as in English." (© Richard G. Sporleder)

Additional information

The self-published photo book 'Wet City / Islak Kent' was published in an edition of 500 copies worldwide and an additional 100 copies with print (also available at Cafe Lehmitz Photobooks).

About the Turkish photographer, Yusuf Murat ŞEN (b.1968)

Photo books by Yusuf Murat ŞEN