BALAT  KALEIDOSCOPE

Located in the district of Fatih within the old city section of the European side of Istanbul , Balat is the historic Jewish Quarter dating back to the Byzantine period and persisting through the Ottoman period. Jews began to leave Balat after the earthquake of 1894, moving across the Golden Horn to the neighbourhood of Galata and/or emigrating to Israel. After 1960 the remaining Jewish minority of Balat moved to the district of Sisli and thereafter Balat fell into neglect. Lately the neighborhood has become the focus of an ambitious redevelopment project sponsored by UNESCO.

Given the perpetual cycles of deconstruction and reconstruction that characterizes Istanbul, the Balat Kaleidoscope deconstructs photographs of abandoned buildings in Balat and reconstructs them into 360-degree arcs of repeating forms. The resulting uninterrupted circles of pattern radiating outward from a central point was inspired by the mesmeric, infinitely repeating patterns in the ceilings of the great Selimiye Mosque in Edirne; patterns which seem seem to illuminate the insignificance of human actions in the arc of tıme.