In Eskisehir, OMM explores memory and belonging through the sofra

Welcome to Al-Monitor Istanbul.

This week, we move out of the city once more, to Eskisehir, a UNESCO-listed town we love to cover. We also offer suggestions for end-of-the-year dinners, exhibitions off the beaten track, mostly on the Anatolian side, and a great leisurely book about one woman’s journey in Turkey.

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Thanks for reading,

Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)

P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.

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1. Leading the week: More art of the table

 Slim Aarons “Dining Ala Fresco on Capri” (OMM)

We are leading the week with an event that is just a three-hour train ride from Istanbul, in Eskisehir, a city shaped by Phrygian antiquity, Ottoman railways and, more recently, a buoyant student population. In the historic Odunpazari quarter, the Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM), designed by Kengo Kuma and founded by Erol Tabanca and Rana Erkan Tabanca, has opened “Wide Expanse” (Ferahfeza), curated by Yagmur Elif Ertekin.

The exhibition takes the sofra, loosely translated as “the table,” as its organizing principle, treating it not as decor or gastronomy but as a social space shaped by shared experience. In Turkish, Ertekin notes, sofra refers neither strictly to the meal nor the furniture, but to an emotional terrain in which intimacy and collective memory overlap. “This is not a food exhibition,” she told Al-Monitor, “but one that looks at the feelings and relationships formed around the table, whether at home, in a school canteen or by the seaside.”

Some works carry a particular charge for Turkish viewers. Gulsun Karamustafa’s “People of Istanbul” assembles collages of found photographs against wallpaper-like backdrops recalling 1950s interiors. The familiarity is deliberate; the context is not. The images depict non-Muslim citizens who left Turkey after the Sept. 6-7, 1955, pogroms. Ara Guler’s black-and-white photographs trace the social pulse of Beyoglu, while works by Fikret Mualla and Cihat Burak ground the exhibition in the raw, informal energy of urban life. Slim Aarons, a former war photographer who later turned to celebrity culture, appears with a photograph of a group picnicking with studied ease in Capri.

Younger voices extend the conversation. Yaren Karakas’ “Meeting Break,” with its abandoned tea glasses, suggests conversations paused midthought, while Elif Uras contributes a carpet depicting a laden table, translating abundance into something deliberately slow and tactile. TUNCA’s “Desire” series sharpens the politics of eating by reconstructing and painting the favorite meals of world leaders, linking taste directly with power.

Gulsun Karamustafa’s “People of Istanbul” (OMM)

Beyond the galleries, “Wide Expanse” reflects OMM’s broader role in Eskisehir. Museum director Defne Casaretto told Al-Monitor that the institution runs ongoing collaborations and education programs with the city’s fine arts schools, anchoring contemporary art in a young local audience. The seventh of OMM’s major long-term exhibitions since its opening in 2019, “Wide Expanse” is reason enough to make the trip, and to linger over the communal table at the museum’s sustainable vegan cafe and OMM’s INN restaurant.

📍 Where: Sarkiye Mah. Ataturk Bul. No: 37, Odunpazari, Eskisehir

🗓️ When: Until September 2026

2. Word on the street: Ruya

Oysters, anyone? (Courtesy of Cıragan Ruya)

Go luxurious in the New Year with Ruya Istanbul at Ciragan Palace Kempinski, where modern Anatolian cuisine meets full Bosphorus glamour. A polished five-course gala built around oysters, caviar, king crab, turbot, and lamb cutlets or truffled mushroom keskek is paired with a DJ and live trio, letting the palace’s effortless sense of occasion do the rest.

… or go funny. Rixos Tersane Istanbul revives old-school gazino culture with Turkish comedian Ata Demirer, performing for the first time in a dinner-and-show New Year’s Eve format. Think flower sellers, roaming photographers, tarama and botargo, short ribs and quince dessert, followed by late-night soup — a nostalgic, high-spirited way to laugh your way into the new year.

3. Istanbul diary

Deniz Dogruyol knows who she is – and shows it (Courtesy of Futy)

Retromix, Deniz Dogruyol’s pop-up exhibition at Futy Art Gallery in Beykoz, brings together works from different periods without a linear timeline, foregrounding rhythm, color and irony instead. On view through Jan. 2, the show treats time as a shared medium where past and present play off each other.

Maltepe Sanat hosts “Impressions from Anatolia,” the fifth edition of a long-running project supporting fine arts students from across the country. Featuring 25 young artists and 40 works shaped by their encounters with Istanbul’s cultural heritage, the exhibition is free to visit until Feb. 28.

At Nelumbo Studios in Kadikoy, outspoken miniaturist Cagri Dizdar’s second solo exhibition “Araf,” or Limbo, curated by Yasemin Green, explores the uneasy threshold between image and reality through miniature, illumination and contemporary illustration. Running through Feb. 8, the show moves between tradition and digital language, inviting viewers into a suspended visual zone.

On the European side, Dirimart Dolapdere presents “Sculpture,” a solo exhibition by Tony Cragg, bringing together the artist’s multiform works in bronze, wood, aluminum and steel from Dec. 15 to Jan. 18. Working across materials including marble, glass, sandstone and fiberglass, Cragg approaches the relationship between nature and the human-made world as a field of experimentation and imagination.