MAGIC CARPETS RESIDENCIES
Diyalog Derneği
1–30 September 2025
The Magic Carpets Residencies at the 2025 Mahalla Festival, organised by Diyalog Derneği, provided an inspiring platform where tradition and contemporary artistic creativity converged within the historic walls of Büyük Valide Han, a 17th-century caravanserai in Istanbul. Under the artistic direction of Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch, and with the participation of emerging curator Mathilde Melek An, the residency became a dynamic site for dialogue between history, community, craft and contemporary art.
In close collaboration with the Magic Carpets platform, two international artists were invited to bring new perspectives to the Han through their artistic projects. Artist Tbel Abuseridze from Georgia was proposed by curator Ana Gabelaia from Tbilisi Photo Festival, while artist Ieva Kotryna Ski, representing Lithuania and France, was recommended by curator Brigita Bareikytė from Kaunas Biennial.
Mahalla Festival
For the 2025 Mahalla Festival, artistic director Sabine Küper-Büsch selected the theme “Midas Touch”, drawing inspiration from the ancient myth in which King Midas was granted the power to turn everything he touched into gold. This gift, however, quickly became a curse when even food transformed into metal, ultimately leading to starvation. Building on this narrative, the festival transformed the Han into a space where craftsmanship, history and contemporary narratives converged, exploring “The Re-Narration of the Midas Dilemma” as a reflection on value, transformation and the consequences of unchecked growth.
In 2025, the Han functioned both as the festival venue and as the residency site for participating artists. This dual role created an environment designed for exploration, connection and creation in collaboration with the local community. The site’s long-standing tradition of metalwork provided a particularly fitting context for the theme, enriching the dialogue between heritage and innovation embedded in the artists’ projects.
Residency preparation
Preparations for the residency began well in advance of the artists’ arrival through a series of exchanges including Zoom meetings, emails and shared documents. These conversations enabled a thorough understanding of the space, timeline, material requirements and modes of community engagement. Such groundwork was essential to ensure that each project would be meaningfully embedded within the layered environment of the Han, a place shaped by both historical continuity and living craftsmanship.
Community inclusion and co-creation formed the core of the residency’s ethos. From the outset, artists engaged directly with local artisans and craftspeople working in the Han, fostering mutual exchange of skills, histories and creative processes. This dialogue was further strengthened through collaboration with metalworkers and designers Mert Onur and Serhat Erol. Their expertise in copper and brass metalwork supported the material realisation of the artworks while symbolically linking contemporary artistic practice with the Han’s enduring tradition of craftsmanship.
Residency projects
Tbel Abuseridze (1–30 September)
Tbel Abuseridze’s project, titled What Has Man Made of Man, employed the cyanotype process, a photographic printing technique known for its deep blue tones, to capture fleeting moments of everyday life inside the Han. These images were transferred onto delicate, translucent fabrics, forming layered visual surfaces that revealed unseen histories and traces of human presence embedded in the space.
Extending beyond the Han, Tbel incorporated a series of cyanotype prints depicting the Kanal Istanbul urban development. Accented with golden leaves, these works referenced the emerging bridges at the site and highlighted tensions between preservation and large-scale urban transformation. Arranged along the arc of the exhibition space, the prints echoed the form of the planned bridges themselves. The installation also included documentation of the cyanotype-making process and working setups, encouraging community participation and leading to two workshops during the Mahalla Festival.
By juxtaposing contemporary urban imagery with the ancient architecture of the Han, Tbel addressed the often invisible costs of unrestrained development. The fragile cyanotype prints gained material grounding through copper bases handcrafted by metalworkers Mert and Serhat, bringing traditional metalcraft into dialogue with the ethereal photographic process. Through this interplay of past and present, material and memory, the work functioned as a bridge connecting histories and futures through a language of transformation.
Ieva Kotryna Ski (1–30 September)
Ieva Kotryna Ski’s project, Measuring Time with Coffee Spoons, reflected on the monotonous rhythms of routine and on lingering, unproductive moments along the Bosporus that resist the modern cult of efficiency. Drawing on her ongoing interest in technological glitches and fragmented everyday life, the installation centred on a video recorded through a smartphone camera defect. The resulting distortions produced surreal purples, blues and pinks, evoking both nostalgia and estrangement.
Accompanying the video, a series of photographs captured moments in which time appears to dissolve into the Bosporus waves, while clocks subtly merge with craftsmen’s workshops. These images suggested the quiet pulse of daily existence within the city. A distorted brass spoon, forged collaboratively with craftsman Mert, became a sculptural embodiment of time’s deformation under contemporary pressures. Serving simultaneously as a warped unit of measurement and a prompt to slow down, the object echoed the project’s central concerns. The installation’s intimate scale and raw materiality resonated with the lived textures of the Han, inviting reflection on how time is measured, managed and often lost.
Through the interplay of digital error and manual craft, Ieva created a suspended moment in which time drifts not as currency, but as a subtle current flowing through the city’s hidden rhythms.
Residency framework
The residency embedded sustainability, equity and well-being as core principles, aligning artistic creation with environmental responsibility. Artists were encouraged to use Istanbul’s public transport for travel and to source materials such as brass, copper and silver directly from local craftspeople. Prioritising on-site resources over mass production reduced ecological impact while strengthening ties to local heritage.
Equal opportunity was fostered through reciprocal exchange: artists shared conceptual and artistic approaches, while craftspeople contributed technical knowledge and historical insight. This collaboration extended into festival workshops, exhibitions and public events open to both residents and visitors, with translation support ensuring inclusive cross-cultural dialogue.
Well-being was supported through regular check-ins, open communication and balanced schedules that alternated focused production with rest, exploration and social interaction within the Han’s surrounding neighbourhood. This supportive structure enabled participants to engage fully and sustainably in the creative process.
The outcome of these layered dialogues between artists, craftspeople, place and community was a series of works that reactivated the historic Han as a living nexus of stories, craftsmanship and contemporary artistic inquiry. The Magic Carpets Residencies at the Mahalla Festival became more than a presentation platform; they demonstrated how collaborative processes rooted in respect for heritage can generate new meanings and sustain living artistic practices. Through the perspectives of artists such as Tbel Abuseridze and Ieva Kotryna Ski, and the hands of Mert, Serhat, Batuhan and others, Büyük Valide Han emerged as a living neighbourhood of narratives, continuously evolving at the intersection of past and present.
Curatorial text by Mathilde Melek An