Introduction: I’m Here and not here

After a decade of active engagement in many compartments of an art initiative in Istanbul as an initator, educator, curator and a gallery director, I have finally decided to embrace a new page in my life. For the last ten years my life has been divided between my time in İstanbul and Bodrum. Initially Istanbul was my base for everything -family, friends, colleagues, work at the university and work as a cultural entrepreneur in the art initiative that I co-founded and directed for ten years- and Bodrum was a lovely but comparatively rare spiritual and physcal escape. But, the balance has gradually turned towards the latter.

Bodrum was always in my life since my childhood. My parents owned a summer house in one the bays and I’ve been there for almost all my vacations with my family and later on with my friends. My married life stregthened my bond with Bodrum even deeper as we bought a small house in the old town in 2013 (I’d like to come back to that topic later in another post.)

Towards the end of 2010s, I basically started to go back to İstanbul every 2 to 3 weeks to be in my art space -in person- to curate, organize, make project meetings, and witness the gallery programing that I have been making being realized. Of course, I would have enjoyed being personally involved in everything we did there throughout the month but the physical reality did not allow me to do it. So, towards the end of 2018 I began to compromise and limit my Istanbul presence with 3 to 5 days in evey 2 to 3 weeks. My sincere utopia was to cut out that bit of Istanbul where my art space was on the cartography and implant it to Bodrum where my house, family and hopefully my future are. If only it was possible in real life, a simple “cut and paste” would suffice to put all my dearly loved apples in the same basket instead of juggling them up in the air all the time. Nevertheless, I am grateful to everything that life brings me in the way they are.

İpek Çankaya, 04.06.2019, Bodrum

Photo from our previous gallery space in Istanbul, a night before the opening of Doğu Çankaya’s exhibition Fragments (2018). I miss being in there, looking at the walls, writing captions for the current exhibition in a regular work day. Starting from 2018 these days became limited to 4-5 in a month since most my working time was in my desk which was my office that I create, manage and supervise things from Bodrum. Now this office space is a part of Art Halicarnassus. And yes, the title of this entry fits perfectly: I’m here and not here.