VIENNA hürriet daily news
The exhibtion suggests that railway stations serve an
essential function; increasing mobility and linking people and places in
an almost seamless fashion.
Within the scope of a project for the preservation of Istanbul’s
historic Haydarpaşa Railway Station, the city last year hosted an
exhibition featuring the works of 16 Turkish and foreign artists on
railway stations.
The second leg of the exhibition, titled “From
the Bosphorus to the Danube: Past, Present, Uncertain Future,” opened
yesterday at Vienna’s Steiner Gallery. The exhibition, curated by Suzie
Pilon and Michael Werbowski, is organized by the Haydarpaşa Preservation
Board.
The show marks a cultural event that seeks to raise
awareness both in Turkey and internationally about the plight of the
great yet endangered (by privatization and neglect) public space.
Canadian and Turkish artists, printmakers and photographers are taking
part in the show, which aims to collect funds for the Haydarpaşa Station
Preservation Project, which - under the auspices of the World Monuments
Fund - has been instrumental in advocating for the station’s
preservation and restoration.
The theme of the exhibition is to
show how art work can be integrated within a public space. It also
wishes to demonstrate how the site itself can serve as a meeting and
gathering place for the citizenry, while also remaining a fully
functional transportation hub and a viable cultural venue.
Information on railway stationsAccording
to the press release, railways stations serve an essential function;
increasing mobility and linking people and places in an almost seamless
fashion. The railways or train stations naturally also function as
points of arrival and departure, and give us a fleeting feeling of
“temporary permanence.”
They serve as a bridge between time and
space, frontier, and metropolis, inwardness and remoteness, foreign and
domestic territory. They are a location meant to be there, or where our
diverging and diverse destinies can meet and exchange timeless
narratives.
The railways and their transportation hubs such as
the classic, modern, or postmodern railway terminals are inalterable or
where temporality is only a train timetable. Hence, the railway station
is the central locus for exchange; or where we re-invent ourselves in an
eternal process of renewal, mutual discovery and constant mobility.
This is what makes stations such as Haydarpaşa so vital to our everyday
lives and existence.
“From the Bosphorus to the Danube: Past, Present, Uncertain Future” can be seen until Oct. 20.
Haydarpaşa Railway Station
Built by the German-owned Anatolian-Baghdad Railway and
designed by architects Otto Ritter and Helmuth Conu, the historic
Haydarpaşa Railway Station is an iconic landmark in Istanbul and a
symbolic gateway to the city, on its Asian coastline. In January 2012
the station closed to allow for the construction of a high-speed rail
line between Istanbul and Ankara. Planning for transportation in the
greater region, development of the area around the station is still in
its formative stages, and the future use of the station has yet to be
determined.
