Sakip Sabanci Museum

Tuesday after mindmapping, we went to the Sakip Sabanci Museum to view their calligraphy collection. It was a bit hectic at first, since we had to leave about half an hour ahead of schedule. But it was worth it for the boat ride to the museum. We got a wonderful view over Istanbul, and I found it impossible to fathom how utterly enormous this city is! It is crowded everywhere with buildings and mosques and people, and in any other city, this crowdedness would sort of ease out into countryside, or outer city areas...but to our amazement Istanbul just keeps spreading out in front of the boat, with the same degree of crowdedness as where we started. Just amazing. I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around that. Considering that just the city has, according to several different numbers I've heard, as much as twice the population of the WHOLE of Sweden, I guess all space that is available is needed to house everyone...

At the museum we first got a tour of the mansion, which was a stunning place, with the most gigantic antique urns I have ever seen. And it also seems that no matter what castle or historic mansion you visit, there will be a 'red room'. Which isn't really strange since our guide told us that the color red was used to symbolise the owners' power. Still, pretty interesting.

The calligraphy exhibit was amazing and inspiring. It's a shame that the guide rushed a bit with her tour, since it would have been nice to take more time and look at all the pieces while still being able to listen to her. Unfortunately, when I stopped to look closer at the tools and things in the exhibit, I missed one or two rooms with her explanations. But the excursion was still very useful. Although I felt I understood the idea of calligraphy from the beginning (having lived in a muslim country previously, it was no mystery to me!), I gained a whole new respect for the craft after seeing all the complex tools and handmade scriptures. The miniature koran was probably the highlight of the place...I can't even imagine what the scribe used to write...a single hair perhaps? Not to mention the amazing handpainted ornamentation around each page in some of the old handmade korans.

Seeing several rooms full of calligraphy pieces has helped to inspire different ways of doing new exciting spatial representations of the craft. I am looking forward to continuing our work and creating a mood board for the project!