Ottoman Arcadia

de Bahattin Öztuncay, Özge Ertem

"Ottoman Arcadia: The Hamidian Expedition to the land of Tribal Roots, 1886" showcases, for the first time, a three-volume set of photographic albums that were prepared following a decree by Abdülhamid II and were eventually gifted to Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of Germany. In 1886, Abdülhamid II commissioned more than a dozen photograph albums destined for the Yıldız Palace Library. They were the result of an imperial decree that sent a documentary commission of court officials and artists to the earliest Ottoman settlements. Soon thereafter, three of these spectacular albums were gifted by the sultan to Bismarck, in commemoration of the political rapprochement between the two empires at the end of the 19th century. These albums later made their way into the Ömer M. Koç Collection in 2017 and they are the focus of ANAMED?s exhibition curated by Bahattin Öztuncay, Ahmet Ersoy, and Deniz Türker. Ottoman Arcadia: The Hamidian Expedition to the Land of Tribal Roots (1886) contextualizes the expedition as a remarkable instance where photography a new visual technology of the 19th century was merged with historical narratives to reconstruct dynastic myths and tribal memory. Exhibition: ANAMED, Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Istanbul, Turkey."--