“What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”: Byzantium in Popular Culture Exhibition Tour
Emir Alışık

Curator's Tour

January 18, 2022 / 19:00
February 24, 2022 / 19:00
March 3, 2022 / 19:00

Istanbul Research Institute’s exhibition at the Pera Museum called “What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”: Byzantium in Popular Culture navigates through the eclectic presence of Byzantium in popular culture. Within the scope of the exhibition, an exhibition tour will be held with a limited number of participants, accompanied by the curator of the exhibition Emir Alışık.

About Emir Alışık
Project Manager at the Suna and Inan Kıraç Foundation Istanbul Research Institute Byzantine Studies Department and a member of the Editorial Board of YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies, Emir Alışık completed his master's degree in the Department of Comparative History: Interdisciplinary Medieval History at Central European University, with a thesis on  political thought in the late Byzantine period. While continuing his doctoral studies with his thesis on the appearance of Byzantine thought in Italian Renaissance art in the Department of Art History at Istanbul University, he also continues his research on the manifestations of Byzantium in speculative fiction through various art mediums.

The tour will be in Turkish. Admission: 50 TL (Free admissions for Friends of Pera Museum.)
To join the tour, you can buy a ticket from Biletix or make a reservation via the e-mail address
reception@peramuzesi.org.tr. Places are limited.

Temporary Exhibition

“What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”

Istanbul Research Institute’s exhibition at the Pera Museum called “What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”: Byzantium in Popular Culture, curated by Emir Alışık, navigates through the eclectic presence of Byzantium in popular culture. 

“What Byzantinism Is This in Istanbul!”

Moscow Conceptualists

Moscow Conceptualists

Our institutions have been stuck on linear Neo-Platonic tracks for 24 centuries. These antiquated processes of deduction have lost their authority. Just like art it has fallen off its pedestal. Legal, educational and constitutional systems rigidly subscribe to these; they are 100% text based.

Postcard Nudes

Postcard Nudes

The various states of viewing nudity entered the Ottoman world on postcards before paintings. These postcards appeared in the 1890s, and became widespread in the 1910s, following the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Monarchy, traveling from hand to hand, city to city. 

Demons, Symbols, and the Cosmos

Demons, Symbols, and the Cosmos

Beliefs surrounding illness and healing in Byzantium stem from the myths, astrology, and magic practiced around the Mediterranean by Jews, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Greeks.