"Black Sea Currents" Photography Exhibition

11-31 August 2009
Black Sea Currents: Migration and Cosmopolitan Dynamics in two Post-Imperial Cities, İstanbul and Odessa, is a three year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and run by Prof. Dr. Caroline Humphrey, Dr. Yael Navarro Yashin and Dr. Vera Skvirskaya of the Anthropology Department at Cambridge University. The project aims to compare the changing cosmopolitan dynamics and migration flows of two great port cities on the Black Sea - Odessa, Ukraine and Istanbul, Turkey - focusing on old and newly emergent diasporic subjectivities and identities. Both cities have been represented as 'cosmopolitan' in their Russian/Soviet and Ottoman contexts and been extolled for their harmonious spirit and diversity. Yet, it is important to study critically the real underlying processes of urban formations and (post) Imperial cosmopolitan imaginaries.

Photographs taken by Dr. Vera Skvirskaya and Martin Demant Frederiksen in Odessa and Batum, by Kristen Biehl and Lale Ertuş in Istanbul during February 2009 as a part of the research activities were exhibited at İstanbul Bilgi University, Dolapdere Campus between 11-31 August 2009 in collaboration with İstanbul Bilgi University Center for Migration Research. The photographs were also exhibited at the World Odessit Club in Odessa during 6-14 April 2009, and at Cambridge University during the project closing conference on 6-7 November 2009