The story of 500 years of cityscapes

The new exhibition from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation's two institutions, Pera Museum and the Istanbul Research Institute, "On the Spot: Panoramic Gaze on Istanbul, a History" offers viewers a new look on Istanbul's role in the global history of panoramic representation.

Covering a period spanning from the 15th to the 20th centuries, the exhibition includes a unique rotunda to experience a previously unknown 19th-century panorama of Istanbul in an immersive and interactive setting, as well as a 3D animation of a widely recognized panorama.

Exploring the "panorama" medium from a critical standpoint, the exhibition is bringing together some of the most remarkable works by artists who captured a panoramic view of Istanbul, such as Seutter, Merian, Feraud, Barker, Gudenus, Schranz, Melling, Dunn, and Robertson, and also reveals how the panoramic perspective has been used to document different phenomena in Istanbul's history, from fire disasters to industrialization.

In the exhibition, curated by Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, K. Mehmet Kentel, and M. Baha Tanman, the joint curatorial efforts provide a close examination of the circulation of this representational form in the Ottoman world and Europe through a diverse selection of materials, including ephemera and archival documents in addition to paintings, prints, and photographs, while exploring the fluidity within this diversity and the dialogues between different media.

While concentrating on 19th-century panoramas and panoramic images, On the Spot invites its audience to a comprehensive reconsideration of the long history of the panoramic perspective dating back to the early modern period, and Istanbul's position within this history.

The seeds of "On the Spot: Panoramic Gaze on...