Exhibition Dates: September 29, 2026 – March 28, 2027
Pera Museum is opening Behind the Camera of the Republic on September 29, an exhibition organized by the Istanbul Research Institute (IAE) to mark its 20th anniversary. Curated by İdil Çetin and Ahmet Ersoy, the exhibition explores everyday life in Istanbul during the early Republican period and the behind-the-scenes world of photojournalism. Featuring photographs selected from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Photography Collection and the Press Photographs Archive, the exhibition offers different perspectives on the social diversity and visual memory of the period.
Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum is opening its new exhibition, Behind the Camera of the Republic, on September 29, as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Istanbul Research Institute (IAE). Curated by İdil Çetinand Ahmet Ersoy, the exhibition takes an unconventional look at everyday life in Istanbul during the early Republican period and the behind-the-scenes world of photojournalism. Featuring photographs selected from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Photography Collection and the Press Photographs Archive, the exhibition focuses on people, moments, and stories that remained outside the established visual memory of the period stretching from the 1920s to the early 1950s. Through unpublished and uncirculated press photographs, the exhibition reveals the social diversity of the era as well as often-overlooked layers of news production.
An “Excess of Data” Comprising More Than 90,000 Photographs
The reproducible nature of photography has generated an enormous visual accumulation since the 19th century, far beyond the photographs that entered public circulation. Images that were excluded from selection, remained unused, or lost their significance over time also became part of this accumulation, forming different layers of visual memory. Behind the Camera of the Republic focuses on this visual material left behind in the process of news production.
The starting point of the exhibition is the Press Photographs Archive, which contains more than 90,000 photographs. A significant portion of these images consists of flawed or damaged photographs, as well as photographs that fell outside the aesthetic and ideological expectations associated with the early Republican period. Often overlooked according to conventional exhibition and archival standards, these photographs are brought back into visibility through the exhibition.
Spanning the period from the 1920s to the early 1950s, the selection also sheds light on the early years of photojournalism in Turkey. Although many of the photographs were taken in Istanbul by Cumhuriyet newspaper photojournalists Selahattin Giz and his mentor Namık Görgüç, the collection of unidentified negatives also contains numerous photographs by other prominent press photographers of the period. These images provide an opportunity to trace the processes of news production while also offering an informal testimony to everyday life.
A Polyphonic History Focused on the “People” of the Republic
The photographs in the archive bring to the foreground marginalized and excluded subjects of the early Republican period, including the poor, prisoners, and people in the streets. In this respect, the exhibition offers an opportunity to view everyday life and the social fabric of the period beyond established forms of representation.
Behind the Camera of the Republic does not seek to construct a nostalgic narrative that reinforces dominant patterns of memory, nor does it aim to present a singular “counter-history” in opposition to them. Instead, drawing on the unfiltered nature of the archive, it brings out the uncertainties, tensions, and plurality of the period and questions how the early Republican era might be remembered in different ways.
Behind the Camera of the Republic can be visited at Pera Museum from September 29, 2026 to March 28, 2027.
Pera Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and on Sundays from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. On Fridays, as part of “Long Friday,” the museum is free for all visitors from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. On Wednesdays, all students can visit the museum free of charge as part of “Young Wednesday.”
