Uludağ İçecek Türk A.Ş. hosts “Distant Places, Generations, Gazes,” an exhibition drawn from the Erbak family’s 96-year photographic archive as part of 212 Photography Istanbul. The exhibition will be open to visitors at Akaretler No:5 from September 26 to October 11, 2026.
Continuing its long-standing support for culture and the arts, Uludağ İçecek Türk A.Ş. meets art enthusiasts this year with a special exhibition as part of 212 Photography Istanbul, now in its ninth edition. “Distant Places, Generations, Gazes” brings together, within a shared narrative, the ways in which three generations have looked at the world through the lens of a camera over the course of 96 years.
The exhibition brings together travel photographs by Nuri Z. Erbak (1914), Mehmet H. Erbak (1950), and Ceylin Erbak Aytekin (1988). Stretching from Bursa to diverse geographies around the world, these journeys go beyond personal memories to become visual records of three distinct eras. Alongside changing generations, photography, and the world itself, the exhibition reveals that the desire to document what is seen has remained unchanged and has been passed down from one generation to the next.
The story begins with Nuri Z. Erbak, who travelled with a camera from the 1930s onward. His journeys—from Egypt to Venezuela, Tanzania to Hawaii, and Hong Kong to Japan—reflect a desire to discover the world at a time when travel was far less accessible than it is today. This legacy expands through Mehmet H. Erbak’s journeys, which took him from the Trans-Siberian Railway to remote corners of India and China, and from Tibet to Antarctica. In Ceylin Erbak Aytekin’s travels across all seven continents, the same spirit of discovery continues through the visual language of a new era.
Stretching from Nuri Z. Erbak’s post-war cities to Ceylin Erbak Aytekin’s world, where borders and images circulate at unprecedented speed, the archive makes visible the transformation of people, everyday life, and cultures. The fourth character in the exhibition is time itself. As the photographs become a silent dialogue between generations, they leave visitors with a question: What is passed down—photographs, memories, or perhaps an instinct for what is worth looking at?
Ceylin Erbak Aytekin, one of the photographers featured in the exhibition, describes her relationship with the archive as follows:
“When I look at the photographs my grandfather took in the 1930s, I see not so much where he went, but what he chose to look at. I believe that the legacy passed down through three generations is not a camera, but a curiosity to discover what has not yet been seen. This exhibition goes beyond being a family album; it is a way of seeing how three different generations, at different times and in different geographies, followed the same impulse to explore. Perhaps what is truly passed down between generations is not the photographs themselves, but our ability to look at life.”
The exhibition will also be accompanied by a talk drawing on the same archive. Taking place at Pera Museum on October 6 at 6:00 p.m., the talk will feature Haldun Dostoğlu, Nevzat Sayın, Mehmet H. Erbak, and Ceylin Erbak Aytekin. The conversation will explore how photography has evolved into a family legacy, as well as the changing ways in which generations have experienced the world and documented what they encountered along the way. One of the main themes of the program will be how photographs once taken as personal travel memories can, years later, become visual records of a particular period and way of life. Through the connections established between the images of three generations, the talk will open a discussion on photography’s relationship with memory, time, and heritage.
With the idea of art, culture, and life in every sip at the heart of its corporate approach, Uludağ İçecek Türk A.Ş. continues to make sustainable contributions to the field of culture and the arts. Through its long-standing main sponsorship of the Bursa Regional State Symphony Orchestra, the brand contributes to the orchestra’s development and international visibility. Since 2018, through its collaborations with Contemporary Istanbul, it has also brought the experience of art to a different dimension through specially designed bottle labels created in collaboration with artists.
In 2026, under its Uludağ Premium brand, Uludağ İçecek Türk A.Ş. became one of the supporters of the Turkish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The company also brought back to life, in 2026, the monumental ceramic panel “Gazoz Ağacı” (Soda Tree), designed by Prof. Dr. Tülin Ayta in 1975–1976 and once displayed on the façade of the Uludağ Gazoz Factory.
For Uludağ İçecek Türk A.Ş., culture and the arts are not merely fields to be supported, but an integral part of life. Extending from local initiatives to international platforms, this approach stands as a tangible reflection of the brand’s vision of carrying culture, art, and creativity into the future.
