“Form-Craft-Activism” spotlights the labor behind making

Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.

May Day rarely arrives quietly in Turkey. It brings with it a familiar choreography: sealed-off streets, suspended ferries and moments between celebration and control. 

This week, we focus on labor and resistance in the world of culture: A new exhibition at Terakki Vakfi turns attention to the act of making itself, tracing the line between craft and collective memory. In Kadikoy, a century of political satire reminds us how dissent once found its sharpest voice in print. And across three cities, a film festival gathers stories of resistance that continue to echo far beyond the screen. We finish with statistics on child labor.

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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: Form, Craft, Activism

Bilal Yilmaz’s “Revolution is here” (Terakki Vakfi)

Labor tends to disappear just as it becomes most essential. We admire the finished object, rarely the hours, repetitions and negotiations that brought it into being. Bilal Yilmaz’s new exhibition, “Form-Craft-Activism,” insists on reversing that instinct.

Yilmaz, an Istanbul-based interdisciplinary artist trained across engineering and design, has long worked at the intersection of material, system and society. His practice draws on light, sound and movement, but also on something more stubborn: the persistence of craft as both knowledge and social memory. His exhibition, which opens on May 7 and runs through June 7 at the Terakki Vakfi Sanat Galerisi, reads as an active setup, where thinking, making and testing remain in view rather than neatly resolved.

The exhibition’s conceptual spine rests on the tension between analytical thought and material behavior. That tension produces objects, but also questions. What does it mean to think through making? And who gets to be visible in that process?

Part of the answer lies in CraftNet, Yilmaz’s ongoing research platform that maps urban craft ecosystems and connects artisans with contemporary creative networks. Developed in Istanbul, the project gives makers often excluded from formal cultural narratives a digital presence, reframing craft as a site of collective production.

Inside the gallery, this approach translates into a dense arrangement of found objects, prototypes and mechanical constructions. Drawings, notes and sound installations sit alongside light-based interventions, forming a layered environment where no single work claims finality. The emphasis stays on process: repetition, adjustment and rhythm.

Craft Series (Courtesy of Terakki Vakfi)

Curator Nazli Pektas describes the exhibition as an “unfolding of the artist’s mental layers” in which form emerges through time, collaboration and accumulated effort. What we encounter is a record of thought taking shape under pressure.

Date: May 7-June 7

Location: Sisli Terakki Vakfi Sanat Galerisi, Ebulula Mardin Caddesi, Ozturk Sokak No:2, Levent

2. Word on the street: Yanyali Fehmi Lokantasi

Wooden tables, good food (CYanyali Fehmi Restaurant)

Yanyali Fehmi Lokantasi has been serving the same style of food in Kadikoy since 1919, now under its third generation. The format is simple: trays of daily dishes lined up behind glass, regulars scanning and pointing. The kitchen stays close to the canon. Slow-cooked aubergine with minced lamb remains a staple; lamb dishes rotate with the day’s cooking; desserts, including pistachio kadayif, are made on site and sold at the front counter. The portions are generous and the pricing is still within reach, which partly explains its Bib Gourmand status.

Address: Osmanaga Mahallesi, Yalikci Ismail Sokak No:1, Kadıkoy

3. Istanbul diary

Aksu Gunay’s “Heap” shows bodies crushed by urban weight. (Courtesy of the artist)

• “Belgian Art Hub: Belgium-Istanbul Art Bridge” at Metrohan brings together Karl Talip Kara, Saar De Buysere, Aksu Gunay and Veerle De Smet under the curatorship of Jeroen Demoen, opening a dialogue between memory, landscape and cultural exchange. Until May 20.

• “Cartoonists of Cumhuriyet” at Alan Kadikoy revisits the newspaper’s 102-year archive through the work of 71 artists, from Ayi Ulvi to Turhan Selcuk, tracing a visual history of labor, politics and dissent in Turkey. 

• The 21st International Labor Film Festival runs from May 1 to 10 across Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, bringing together 54 local and 17 international films centered on resistance and solidarity. Screenings are free and include panels and forums; the full program is here.