Versus Arts Gallery presents Turkish photographer Mustafa Seven’s solo exhibition NASİP in London from 12–26 September 2026. Curated by Dr. Nilay İşlek, the exhibition focuses on encounters, coincidence, seeing, and the experience of living together in the modern city through photographs Seven has taken over many years on the streets of Istanbul.
Sponsored by Londonist DMC, Impervia Group, and Dilara Arslan, NASİP approaches Istanbul not merely as a city to be photographed, but as a vibrant space where different lives, times, and possibilities are constantly intersecting. In Seven’s photographs, streets, squares, ferries, and waterfronts cease to be mere backdrops and become social spaces continually reconfigured by people’s everyday movements. A glance, a moment of waiting, strangers standing side by side, or fleeting moments of intimacy within a crowd make visible the often unnoticed relationships that shape urban life.
The exhibition takes its title from the Turkish word “nasip,” which has no exact equivalent in English. Concepts such as fate, chance, serendipity, or contingency come close to capturing aspects of its meaning, yet none fully encompasses it. Nasip simultaneously evokes possibility, timing, encounter, and the relationship between individuals and circumstances beyond their control. For this reason, the title is retained in Turkish throughout the exhibition’s international journey.
At the heart of the exhibition’s curatorial approach is the distinction between looking and seeing. In urban life, we encounter thousands of people, images, and events every day, yet only a small fraction truly becomes visible to us. Seven’s photographic practice turns its attention to these moments that can easily go unnoticed in the ordinary flow of everyday life. Photography thus becomes more than a record of an event that has taken place; it becomes a space of encounter where the photographer’s attention, time, and chance intersect.
Curator Dr. Nilay İşlek describes the exhibition’s conceptual framework: “An encounter may happen by chance. But noticing it is something else. NASİP emerges precisely in that brief moment when chance intersects with awareness, and looking becomes seeing.”
Emerging from Istanbul’s dense, layered, and constantly transforming public life, these photographs tell more than the story of a particular city. Through Istanbul, NASİP poses a more universal question: What does it mean to exist alongside others in a city?
The fact that the exhibition begins its international journey in London also carries a particular significance in this context. Like Istanbul, London is a cosmopolitan city where different cultures, languages, migration stories, and lived experiences continually encounter and transform one another. Bringing moments that took place in Istanbul into dialogue with audiences in London makes photography’s potential to create new encounters across geographies and experiences an integral part of the exhibition itself.
NASİP invites viewers not simply to look at Istanbul, but to reconsider what it means to see, to be seen, to encounter others, and to share the same world.
EXHIBITION INFORMATION
Artist: Mustafa Seven
Exhibition: NASİP
Curator: Dr. Nilay İşlek
Artist Manager: Onur Ovacık
Dates: 12–26 September 2026
Venue: Versus Arts Gallery
Address: 114A Lower Clapton Rd, London E5 0QR
Web: www.versusarts.com
Contact: info@versusarts.com
