Istanbul Elsewhere is a cultural project exploring acts of ‘Istanbuliteness'. Istanbuliteness is a way of communicating with the other; sometimes with the individual, sometimes with the space, sometimes with the occasion. It is not a rigid state: it flows, leaks or penetrates in various forms via melodies, visions, verses and prose, and flourishes, when one finds another, on the waterside in New York with a simit and seagull, in London street when one hears a fragment of a Barış Manço song, a table in a Berlin cafe with a glass of rakı. Istanbuliteness is a way of communicating in which Istanbulites mould their city of exile into the image of Istanbul.
An Istanbulite can never be free of their beloved city, wherever they are in the world, they will always be elsewhere, in Istanbul. In a street, in a bar, on the waterside of a strange city far from home, they will always be reminded, always drawn to a vision of Istanbul.