Interviews & Profiles

Serhat Karaaslan, the filmmaker behind the short films, Bisiqlet and Musa, tells us more about his experience as a film-maker in Turkey. His most recent short...

Four years of living in Istanbul will lead you to stumble upon a significant number of blogs about life in the city. The variety...

Searching for new music? Look no further! A group of independent musicians in Istanbul have launched Sonikraf.com, a site featuring reviews and links to...

For the second part of our interview, I asked Ray about his work at Zorlu Center PSM and how the project has developed over the...

For the second half of our interview, I asked Doug about his "Summer in Turkey" class.  Not only did this course have a tremendous influence...

By Sam Gimson 'Where's Wally?' was my intended opening question when I spoke with Gazi Sansoy about his paintings this weekend. His current show, ‘Who...

Announcing the newest force in reggae, dancehall and urban sounds! Get acquainted with Taxim Sound, a group of four music buffs with a love...

Gamze Saymaz, born in 1994, is a poet based in Istanbul. She studied English Language and Literature as well as Psychology while participating as...

Arthere is a gallery and artists’ workspace in the Yeldeğirmeni neighborhood of Kadıköy. After nine months of preparation, it opened in December of last...

C. M. Kosemen is an artist and independent researcher born in Ankara, Turkey in 1984. He studied at Cornell University, Istanbul’s Sabancı University and...

Podcasts are often an excellent way to learn a language, offering insight into the culture and everyday lives of the people behind the stories...

Improv! Improv is an underappreciated art form where performers create a dialogue or scenes on stage without any pre-writing or scripting. This is an...

Dylan Ware has long been an established yabancı on the radar of Istanbul's music scene. Having lived in Turkey for over a decade, the...

In a continuation of my conversation with Matt Loftin, Utku Öğüt, Alper Erkut, Gabriel Clark and Paul Osterlund of Sonikraf, we discuss the history of the independent music scene in...

Turkey and Istanbul attract people from all around the world. It’s an exciting time and it’s just great to see the city in the...

Meet Ali Halabi, a transplant from Beirut who came to Istanbul in 2012. Although currently preoccupied with his start-up Volt, a ride-sharing app, Ali...

By Selin Genç & Gökay Atabek All metalheads of Istanbul anticipate the summer. Every year in August the two biggest metal festivals take place. Rock...

Just behind Kadar Has University stands a dream house. A creative place where only positive energy is welcome and ideas about how to reuse...

I will never forget the opening night of Danzart and Culture Boutique, when my friend Alfredo and his wife, Zafira, invited me to come...

The expat scene in Istanbul, as it is in many places, is one rather preoccupied with the preservation of the cultural habits of home,...

In anticipation of the 15th !f Independent Istanbul Film Festival we reached out to co-founder and co-director of !f, Pelin Turgut. She took the time...

The Zorlu Center PSM has done it again. Building on last season's Cats and Notre Dame de Paris, they have kicked off the 2014-2015 season...

I first went to Piano House over New Year’s Weekend. I had seen pages for their concert events on Facebook, but had been unable...

In the buildup to the summer of 2018, the announcement of a new festival series reaching Istanbul, appropriately titled Electric Playground, managed to turn...