Istanbul’s water story: From cisterns to the Bosporus |
Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.
This week's theme centers on World Water Day, observed every year on March 22, a United Nations initiative highlighting the importance of freshwater and the sustainable management of water resources. In a city defined by the Bosporus yet historically dependent on invisible reservoirs beneath its streets, water has always been both presence and absence — and an inspiration, as we mentioned in last week’s newsletter.
We start with an exhibition in Bebek that draws inspiration from ancient structures that once gathered water from forests and streams into the city, where artists create ultra-modern works. We then move to the restaurant Lacivert, which offers the rare pleasure of dining almost level with the Bosporus current. We conclude with a look at Turkey's water statistics.
Please note that some of the exhibitions may be closed over Eid al-Fitr.Eid Mubarak and Iyi Bayramlar!
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Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)
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1. Leading the week: Playing with water
Eda Sarman’s installation “Water Must be Close By” (Photo courtesy of IBB Kultur)
In a city where water is everywhere yet never entirely secure (as its 18 million citizens complain of cuts and bills), Istanbul’s relationship with it has always been both practical and poetic. Byzantine emperors carved vast cisterns beneath the city to store winter rains and water by aqueducts. The city’s most famous cistern — the Basilica Cistern, built under Emperor Justinian I in the sixth century — once stored around 80,000 cubic meters of water beneath a forest of marble columns.
Ottoman engineers later expanded the system with fountains, reservoirs and aqueducts that quietly sustained daily life. Yet many of these structures have lost their original function as urbanization hardened the city’s surfaces and reduced the permeability that once allowed water to circulate naturally. Today, artists return to this hydraulic past as a meditation on what has been lost.
The latest example comes in Bebek Sanat, where artist Eda Sarman presents works drawn from the concept of the cistern, a place where water pauses before reentering circulation. Her project, “Playing with Water,” takes Istanbul’s historic water structures as its point of departure, exploring the layered relationship between water, the city, nature and the human body.
Sarman, who studied at Pratt Institute in........