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IST. ARTS & CULTURE FESTIVAL

IST.FESTIVAL 2025

10-12 October 2025

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, IST.FESTIVAL steps into the liminal space between perception and truth, asking a question as old as philosophy yet more urgent than ever: What is really real? In a world increasingly mediated by digital illusions, performative social rituals, and the shifting nature of perception, the festival becomes a crucible for exploring how reality is shaped, fractured, and reimagined.

IST.FESTIVAL 15th Anniversary Highlights: What is Really Real?

A meeting of minds in Istanbul.
A month on, the echoes of IST.FESTIVAL still linger, in the ideas shared, the friendships formed, the moments that bridged worlds.
For three days, artists, thinkers, and dreamers came together to listen, question, and imagine what is really real.
What remains is more than conversation, it’s connection, curiosity, and a renewed belief in the power of art to unite us.
Thank you to everyone who made these days unforgettable.

IST.FESTIVAL 15th Anniversary Edition: Special Moments

From conversation to celebration.
For three unforgettable days, IST.FESTIVAL transformed Istanbul into a gathering of kindred spirits — where ideas met laughter, and dialogue gave way to friendship.
Amid shared meals, crossings of the Bosphorus, and moments of spontaneous joy, art became a language of connection — one that continues to echo beyond the festival.
With gratitude to all who made these days so alive.

Participants

Artists

Advisory Board Members

Theme

Program

Exhibition

Events

Press

Watch Panels

Read Panels

JEFF KOONS
Artist
Jeff Koons is one of the most prominent artists working today. He is known for transforming everyday images and objects into works of art that engage the viewer. For over four decades, Koons has created works of art that explore themes of self-acceptance, empowerment, and transcendence.

INEZ & VINOODH
Photographer Duo
Inez and Vinoodh have a seemingly endless capacity to explore new visual territories. In the early 1990s they were among the first practitioners to show the possibilities of digital-imaging technology as a creative and meaningful medium. They developed a signature style of visual seduction paired with provocative narratives, which infused new ideas into photography. Inez and Vinoodh became known in the early 1990s for their experiments with digital techniques and can rightly be called pioneers in the field of digital image manipulation.

SCOTT MESCUDI (KID CUDI)
Musician
Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) is a Grammy-winning artist, actor, designer, and cultural innovator who redefined hip-hop with Man on the Moon: The End of Day. His visionary album and Emmy-winning Netflix film Entergalactic showcased his boundary-breaking storytelling, while acclaimed roles in Westworld, Don’t Look Up, and X expanded his reach. In 2023, he debuted his fashion label, Members of the Rage, cementing his influence across music, film, fashion, and culture.

LOU DOILLON
Musician
Lou Doillon is a Franco-British multidisciplinary artist whose career spans cinema, music, fashion, and visual art. She made her film debut at age five with Agnès Varda, later winning Artist of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique for her debut album Places and touring internationally. Her drawings and performances have been exhibited worldwide, and in 2013 she was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

FLAVIN JUDD
Artistic Director of Judd Foundation
Flavin Judd is Artistic Director of Judd Foundation, the foundation created by his father Donald Judd. He is co-designer and co-editor of Donald Judd Writings (2016) and publications by the Foundation, and co-designer of Donald Judd: 1957–1963: Paintings and Objects (2024) along with numerous exhibition catalogues. He has designed architectural spaces in the United States and Europe. In his role as Artistic Director, he curates art installations and oversees aesthetics for the Foundation including exhibitions at Gagosian in New York and Hong Kong; and Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris, Salzburg, and Seoul. He lives in France.

MALGOSIA BELA
Model
In 1998, Malgosia Bela (Kraków, Poland, 977) was studying for an MA in English philology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, as well as The Academy of Music there, when a chance meeting with a Warsaw modelling agent resulted in a trip to New York. In the following years she has appeared on countless Vogue covers, worked with the legends such as Richard Avedon, Peter Lindbergh, Peter Beard, and been the face of Gucci, Valentino, Chloe, Vuitton, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Hermes and many, many more. She has also starred in films such Malgorzata Szumowska’s Ono and Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria. Malgosia recently wrote and produced a short movie, « Muse » directed by her husband Pawel Pawlikowski where she performed alongside the Polish pianist Marcin Masecki.

SHEREE HOVSEPIAN
Artist
Sheree Hovsepian is a multidisciplinary artist working with photography, sculpture, drawing, and collage. Hovsepian’s recent solo exhibition Figure Ground was presented at Uffner & Liu (New York, 2025), coinciding with the publication of her first monograph. Her work has been featured in group and institutional exhibitions including the 59th Venice Biennale (The Milk of Dreams) and is held in the permanent collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum amongst others.

MARCIN MASECKI
Pianist
Marcin Masecki is one of Poland’s most prolific and idiosyncratic musicians. Winner of many awards, he performs on all keyboard instruments, composes, conducts, sings, educates, produces, records and curates musical events. His projects span a wide range of styles and his virtuosic fusion of different genres as well as the blurring of the line between high art and entertainment have become his hallmarks.

STEFAN SAGMEISTER
Graphic Designer
Stefan Sagmeister is an Austrian graphic designer and typographer known for his bold and experimental design approach. As the founder of the studio Sagmeister & Walsh, he has made a significant impact in the world of graphic design through brand identities, album covers, and exhibitions.

JONAH FREEMAN
Artist
Jonah Freeman is an American artist known for his immersive, interdisciplinary approach that blurs the line between art, architecture, cinema, and fiction. His work is characterized by large-scale installations that function as speculative environments—cinematic, sculptural, and psychological landscapes that invite viewers to step inside. Whether working individually or in collaboration (notably with artist Justin Lowe), Freeman’s projects unfold as nonlinear narratives populated by invented subcultures, clandestine research labs, rogue institutions, and dystopian interiors.

JOSÉ PARLÁ
Artist
José Parlá (b. 1973) creates paintings and multidisciplinary works inspired by his interest in hybrid forms of abstraction. His works poetically challenge concepts related to language, politics, identity, and our definitions of places and spaces. Parlá’s approach to mark-making is both physical and textural, integrating bodily gestures into a painterly stream of consciousness that features areas of addition, erasure, and layering—questioning the status quo of visual culture. Born to Cuban parents in Miami, Florida, Parlá currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He studied painting at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia; the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida; and Miami Dade College in Miami, Florida.

DÉSIRÉ FEUERLE
The Feuerle Collection Founder
Born in Germany. Collector, curator, and consultant for renowned modern, contemporary, and Asian art collections. Co-founder of The Feuerle Collection, Berlin. Feuerle was included in Artnet’s “World’s Top 100 Art Collectors” and “Top 10 German Art Collectors” in 2016. Lectures at Universities: Oxford, Hong Kong and Humboldt Berlin. Since 2024, partnering with Berlin International Film Festival and FIRST International Film Festival Xining, China. Board member and advisor: Museo del Prado, Tate, Berggruen Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Stimson Center Washington, among others.

TRICIA TUTTLE
Berlinale Director
Tricia Tuttle has been serving as the Festival Director of the Berlinale since April 2024. Her extensive background includes senior roles with the British Film Institute, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the National Film and Television School.

MANUEL RABATÉ
Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum Director
Manuel Rabaté has led Louvre Abu Dhabi since 2016, overseeing its growth and welcoming over 7 million visitors. Previously, he worked at Musée du Louvre and Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac. Rabaté managed Agence France-Muséums as CFO, SG and CEO, playing a key role in the development of Louvre Abu Dhabi both in Paris and Abu Dhabi.

TIMOTHÉE VERRECCHIA
Creative Strategist
Timothée Verrecchia operates in the spaces where culture and commerce intersect, spending over two decades translating cultural undercurrents into strategic advantage for organizations like Apple, LVMH and Coral Gardeners. His work spans the creative spectrum—from collaborating with luminaries in the film industry to working alongside tech giants and luxury brands. He is the founder of TV&P, a cultural hub that acts as a connective tissue between brands, talent, and industries across music, film, fashion, and media.

BENJAMIN PAULIN
Designer & Founder of Paulin, Paulin, Paulin
Benjamin Paulin is a French designer, musician, and founder of Paulin, Paulin, Paulin. He works to preserve and bring to life the legacy of his father, Pierre Paulin, producing rare and previously unrealized designs. By collaborating with skilled French craftsmen, he translates Pierre Paulin’s innovative vision into contemporary pieces, bridging past and present in functional art. Alongside his design work, he has pursued a career in music, first under the name Le Vrai Ben with the 2010 album L’Homme Moderne, and later with Meilleur Espoir Masculin (2016).

FILIP NIEDENTHAL
Founder of 77 Press & Editor
Filip Niedenthal is the founder of the publishing house 77 Press, and a partner in the Hydra Book Club, where he produces the Journal of the Hydra Book Club together with Josh Hickey. He was the launch editor of Polish Vogue in 2018, and prior to that Esquire Poland in 2015.

EKİN BERNAY
Performance Artist
Ekin Bernay has an MA Dance Movement Psychotherapy from Roehampton University and has been working clinically as a DMP. She has experience in adult mental health, autism, primary schools and refugee children. In her live artwork Ekin is working towards merging the DMP findings with a wider audience through performative workshops. Her work focuses on the healing qualities of performance art. She uses text, sound and choreographic situations to direct the audience.

BEN FROST
Artist
Ben Frost is an Australia-born composer, producer, and multimedia artist now based in Reykjavík, Iceland. Known for blending minimalist classical structures with raw industrial and metal textures, his work merges dense electronic sound design with visceral emotional intensity. As a founding artist of the Bedroom Community collective, he has created acclaimed albums and expansive works across film, opera, dance, and installations.

WARIS AHLUWALIA
Actor & Designer
Waris Ahluwalia is an actor, designer, explorer of the beautiful & unexpected. Founder of House of Waris, he champions purposeful living with modern charm. His work spans fashion, film, and art, reflecting a deep appreciation for heritage and our shared unfolding human history.

JOSH HICKEY
Founder of Hydra Book Club & Editor
Josh Hickey is an American writer, editor, and literary curator living in Hydra, Greece and Warsaw, Poland. After over 8 years at the Direction of International Events for Cartier, he founded the Hydra Book Club in 2021. He is the editor of the Journal of the Hydra Book Club, an annual edition of fiction, poetry, essay and image with contributions from contemporary writers, visual artists, curators, critics, and philosophers.

DANIELE MARUCA
The Feuerle Collection Director
Born in Turin, Italy, Daniele Maruca has been Director of The Feuerle Collection since 2015, accompanying its opening with founders Désiré Feuerle and Sara Puig. He supports the museum’s vision as an alternative to conventional exhibition formats, uniting planning and management with cultural content. He previously worked with Castello di Rivoli, Museion Bozen, La Biennale di Venezia, Palazzo Riso, ifa Berlin, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Berlin Biennale, Hamburger Bahnhof, Manifesta, and the studio of Monica Bonvicini.

MARIA ABRAMENKO
Editor at Nasty Magazine & Curatrice / Curator
Maria Abramenk is an independent curator and art advisor with a particular focus on sound art. She has continuously collaborated with the sound artist and composer Ben Frost on multiple solo exhibitions, including Among the Petals, 6×15, and A Predatory Chord. Maria is currently based in Milan, where she is a tutor for the Curating course of the Bachelor and Masters of Arts in Curating at Istituto Marangoni Firenze, while continuing her role as art and culture editor at Nasty Magazine. She has collaborated extensively with artists, collectors, and galleries, organising exhibitions and cultural events across Europe and internationally. Her work combines rigorous research with a strong interest in contemporary sound, and cross-disciplinary artistic practices.

JULIA HALPERIN
Cultured Magazine Editor
Julia Halperin is an arts and culture journalist, editor, and co-founder of the Burns Halperin Report, which tracks equity and representation in the art world. She is a contributor to the New York Times and the Financial Times, serves as editor at large of CULTURED magazine, and is a contributing editor to The Art Newspaper. From 2017 to 2022, she was executive editor of Artnet News.

AYLA JEAN YACKLEY
Financial Times Contributor & Freelance Journalist
Ayla Jean Yackley is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul, writing mainly for the Financial Times. Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, Politico, The Art Newspaper and many other publications. She covers politics, the economy, culture and the intersection of all three. Her reporting has taken her to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Germany and Cyprus.

GAYE SU AKYOL
Musician
Gaye Su Akyol is a singer, songwriter, composer, producer, and multidisciplinary artist from Istanbul. Trained in social anthropology, she merges traditional Anatolian and Classical Turkish music with psychedelia, surf rock, and post-punk through a futuristic lens. Her albums Develerle Yaşıyorum, Hologram İmparatorluğu, and İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir brought her international recognition, earning her the Best Artist Award at the Songlines Music Awards in 2019. In 2025, she wrote, composed, and performed the space musical Consistent Fantasy Is Reality at Komische Oper Berlin and Neue Staatsoper Vienna. Akyol also works across visual arts, exploring themes of power, desire, and rebellion.

ALPHAN EŞELİ
IST.FESTIVAL Co-Founder & Artistic Director
Alphan Eşeli is a Turkish filmmaker, writer, producer, and photographer. His directing work spans across feature films, television series, commercials, and music videos. He has gained recognition on the global stage, with his films premiering at prominent international film festivals such as Telluride, NYFF, and BFI London. Along with writing and directing, Eşeli has also co-founded the Istanbul International Arts & Culture Festival (IST. FESTIVAL) and ISTANBUL’74 Arts & Culture Platform.

FREEMAN & LOWE
Artist Duo
Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe have been collaborating on films and large-scale architectural installations since 2007. Their signature form of spatial collage has produced several interconnected projects that explore the connections between counterculture and industrial society. Fiction is often employed as a means of uncanny distortion in the depiction of specific social/historical environments. Freeman & Lowe is based in New York.

Ben Frost
Artist
Ben Frost (b. 1980, Melbourne, Australia) is a composer, producer, and multimedia artist now based in Athens. Known for blending minimalist classical structures with raw industrial and metal textures, his work merges dense electronic sound design with visceral emotional intensity. As a founding artist of the Bedroom Community collective, he has created acclaimed albums and expansive works across film, opera, dance, and installations.

JOSÉ PARLÁ
Artist
José Parlá (b. 1973, Miami, USA) creates paintings and multidisciplinary works inspired by his interest in hybrid forms of abstraction. His works poetically challenge concepts related to language, politics, identity, and our definitions of places and spaces. Parlá’s approach to mark-making is both physical and textural, integrating bodily gestures into a painterly stream of consciousness that features areas of addition, erasure, and layering—questioning the status quo of visual culture. Born to Cuban parents in Miami, Florida, Parlá currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He studied painting at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia; the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida; and Miami Dade College in Miami, Florida.

SHEREE HOVSEPIAN
Artist
Sheree Hovsepian (b. 1974 Isfahan, Iran) is a multidisciplinary artist working with photography, sculpture, drawing, and collage. Hovsepian’s recent solo exhibition Figure Ground was presented at Uffner & Liu (New York, 2025), coinciding with the publication of her first monograph. Her work has been featured in group and institutional exhibitions including the 59th Venice Biennale (The Milk of Dreams) and is held in the permanent collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum amongst others. She lives and works in New York City.

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN
Artist
Stefan Brüggemann (b. 1975, Mexico City, Mexico) creates works by using appropriation and wording to capture the contradictions of our current society, in which we are inundated with vast amounts of text via social media, mass media, and advertisements. Brüggemann fuses theory with pop methods in what he refers to as “conceptual pop,” drawing predominantly upon ideas of post-structuralism, deconstructionism, and nihilism. Although Brüggemann’s works utilize tautology, the needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word with the most minimal and basic words, their power lies in the ability to invoke individual interpretation within the cultural and political context of the artwork’s location. Brüggemann’s use of gold leaf, neon, and other materials aim to redefine techniques and materials within art, in the same way that we redefine words throughout the ages. Brüggemann lives and works between Mexico, London and Ibiza.

LAURENT GRASSO
Artist
Located at the intersection of heterogeneous temporalities, geographies, and realities, Laurent Grasso’s (b. 1972, Mulhouse, France) films, sculptures, paintings, and photographs immerse the viewer in an uncanny world of uncertainty. The artist creates mysterious atmospheres that challenge the boundaries of what we perceive and know. Anachronism and hybridity play an active role in his strategy, which entails diffracting reality in order to recompose it according to his own rules. Fascinated by the way in which various powers can affect human conscience, Grasso seeks to grasp, reveal, and materialize the invisible, from collective fears to politics to electromagnetic or paranormal phenomena. His work reveals what lies behind common perception and offers us a new perspective on history and reality. He lives and works in Paris, France.

ALİ ELMACI
Artist
Ali Elmacı (b. 1976, Sinop, Türkiye) is a contemporary Turkish artist based in Istanbul. A graduate of Mimar Sinan University’s Painting Department, he works across painting, drawing, video, and sculpture. His vibrant, often humorous works explore power, media, pop culture, and social structures, blending fantastical imagery with ironic commentary. Elmacı has held major solo exhibitions, including Inheritance Passes From Father to Son (2011) and Kiss My Lips, Dagger My Heart (2023).

GÜLAY SEMERCİOĞLU
Artist
One of the first contemporary female Turkish artists to abandon painting and traditionally ‘female’ mediums in her practice, Gülay Semercioğlu (b. 1968, Istanbul, Türkiye) uses light as her primary material. Shimmering, smooth blocks of colour at a distance, her wire-woven works play on our senses of depth and perception, fluctuating in tone and vibrancy as light is reflected and refracted by each individual steel strand. The artist’s deft handling of a typically industrial material also adds to the sculptural and figurative quality of her practice. She creates more than simply ‘non-narrative’ abstract paintings; rather, she emphasises the complexity and labour-intensive aspects of the making process, and touches on traditional Anatolian craft in a uniquely contemporary way. The artist lives and works in Istanbul, Türkiye.

OSMAN DİNÇ
Artist
Osman Dinç (b. 1948, Denizli, Türkiye) works predominantly with steel, which he transforms from rigid sheets of primary material into polished, often rhythmic forms with soft, playful, undulating curves. This is primarily guided by his principle interest in creating work with the least possible intervention to his raw material as possible. Dinç minimizes waste and refrains from obscuring the raw material’s inherent sense of weight and density. Upon completion, the work is usually treated with nothing more than protective layers of epoxy resin, thus retaining its natural earthy colors. Dinç transforms materials into sculptures vitalizing them, inviting the viewers to a dialogue with his own narratives. The sculptures keep their own essence material, and at the same time they bring nature, culture and technique together. Dinç’s artworks mirror our feelings and thoughts, making possible the appearance of a new connection. Dinç lives and works in Paris, France.

ERTUĞRUL GÜNGÖR & FARUK ERTEKİN
Artist Duo
Ertuğrul Güngör & Faruk Ertekin are prominent contemporary Turkish artists known for their experimental approach to sculpture and installation. Combining traditional techniques with innovative materials, their works explore perception, space, and the relationship between objects and viewers. Their collaborative practice often blurs the boundaries between art, design, and architecture, resulting in visually compelling and conceptually layered pieces exhibited in major galleries and international art events. They live and work in Istanbul, Türkiye.

BURHAN DOĞANÇAY
Artist
Burhan Doğançay (1929–2013, Istanbul, Türkiye) was a pioneering Turkish contemporary artist renowned for his exploration of urban walls and cityscapes. Blending painting, photography, and mixed media, his works capture the textures, posters, graffiti, and layers of urban life, reflecting social, political, and cultural change. Doğançay exhibited internationally and his works are included in major collections worldwide, cementing his legacy as a key figure in modern Turkish art.

LAL BATMAN
Artist
Lal Batman (b. 2001, Bursa, Türkiye) is a multidisciplinary artist who constructs visually charged, chaotic and cinematographic compositions by intertwining imagery and material languages from various temporal and cultural contexts. Through this exchange of historical and contemporary aesthetics, she constructs complex layers of meaning, while simultaneously interrogating artistic hierarchies and examining how personal and collective identities are shaped. Her process often begins with the development of a digital infrastructure—a conceptual primer that anchors each piece. She then intervenes in these digitally printed surfaces with oil paint, pearls, and synthetic stones, initiating a dialogue between image and material. Batman lives and works in Istanbul, Türkiye.

ARSLAN SÜKAN
Artist
Arslan Sükan (b. 1973, Ankara, Türkiye) is a multi-faceted artist who is trained in interior architecture and photography and has tackled ideas that question the limitations of human perception, the borders between the physical and the virtual as well as the visible and the invisible. Sükan’s work positions the artist as a challenging narrator who re-creates an idea or a form that confirms viewer expectations at first glance while undercutting them in practice. Sükan lives and works between Istanbul and New York.

KEMAL SEYHAN
Artist
With a body of work spanning a number of decades spent between Istanbul and Vienna, Kemal Seyhan (b. 1960, Kayseri, Türkiye) has adopted the painterly surface as his primary language to convey a sense of the varieties of historical change through time. From his large-scale canvases imbued with sculptural properties, to site-specific interventions, and his more recent graphite works on paper, the artist works within a deceptively restricted range—horizontal and vertical application of color on color. Yet the added layers here—one after another, in the form of an irregular stratigraphy, often executed over finished works from earlier years—reveals a patina effect in his work. The more layers of wet, fresh paint are added, the more the bottomless depth of chaotic, nonlinear time is exposed, with the point of departure never again reached.

NANCY ATAKAN
Artist
Nancy Atakan’s (b.1946, Virginia, USA) practice spans a multimedia approach encompassing installation, video, photography, digital printing, neon and text. In her work, the artist incorporates references to femininity, gender politics, memory, globalization and relationship between image and word. Often autobiographical, these subjects are relevant to her personally as an American who has lived and worked in the metropolis of Istanbul. All of her work involves research, collaboration and dialogue as it incorporates observations of current events and also references to the history and culture of Istanbul. Permeated with touches of lightness, historical narratives and weighty issues within her work are brought closer to everyday life. Atakan lives and works in Istanbul, Türkiye.

SUZAN SABANCI
Chairman of Akbank
Suzan Sabancı is a prominent Turkish business leader, banker, and third-generation member of the Sabancı family. She is the Chairman of Akbank and serves on the boards of Sabancı Holding, Sabancı University, and the Sabancı Foundation.

ROBERT BURKE
Chairman & CEO at Robert Burke Assoc.
Prior to founding Robert Burke Associates in 2006, Robert served as the Senior Vice President of Fashion and Public Relations for Bergdorf Goodman, the world’s leading multi-brand luxury retailer. Robert’s extensive experience and unique background, combined with his close personal relationships with industry leaders have provided him with a comprehensive understanding of the luxury sector.

IST.ARTS & CULTURE FESTIVAL 2025 Theme

What is Really Real?

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, IST.FESTIVAL steps into the liminal space between perception and truth, asking a question as old as philosophy yet more urgent than ever: What is really real? In a world increasingly mediated by digital illusions, performative social rituals, and the shifting nature of perception, the festival becomes a crucible for exploring how reality is shaped, fractured, and reimagined.

Reality has never been fixed—it is molded, manipulated, and reshaped, bent to the needs of those who construct it. More than an inquiry, What is Really Real? is a provocation—an invitation to artists, thinkers, and audiences to interrogate the fault lines between the authentic and the artificial. Is reality a stable entity, or is it an evolving construct, constantly rewritten by history, culture, and technology? At the crossroads of art, cinema, music, literature, architecture, design, photography, and fashion, IST.FESTIVAL convenes a polyphonic dialogue on the conditions of truth and illusion, the erosion of certainty, and the emergence of new ways of seeing.

Art itself becomes a means of constructing and reconstructing reality—offering alternative visions, subverting dominant narratives, and exposing the fragile seams of perception. Through moving images, sonic landscapes, spatial interventions, and literary explorations, artists unravel how the real is not merely observed but actively shaped. The festival challenges audiences to consider: Does art reflect reality, or does it create it anew? Where does representation end, and where does reinvention begin?

Beyond passive contemplation, the festival transforms the city into a living laboratory—where installations, performances, and ephemeral interventions disrupt habitual ways of experiencing the everyday. Streets, galleries, libraries, and public spaces become sites of friction and discovery, dissolving the boundaries between artist and audience, expert and citizen. In this dynamic interplay, reality is not simply observed but co-created, its very essence tested in the act of engagement.

Through a series of thought-provoking panels, conversations, and debates, leading artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers, and theorists will come together to dissect the nature of truth in a fragmented world. These discussions will bridge disciplines, offering a space for critical engagement, speculation, and the exchange of ideas. Participants will challenge conventional narratives, exploring how reality is constructed and reconstructed through language, image, sound, and collective memory.

By embracing paradox and contradiction, What is Really Real? refuses the comfort of easy answers. Instead, it urges a radical curiosity—a commitment to questioning rather than consuming, to lingering in uncertainty rather than retreating into the familiar. In an era where the line between the virtual and the tangible is increasingly blurred, IST.FESTIVAL asserts that reality is not a destination but a tension, an unfolding dialogue between perception and belief, presence and absence, the seen and the unseen.

As IST.FESTIVAL embarks on its next chapter, it remains a catalyst for artistic and intellectual inquiry, a space where disciplines collide and new vocabularies emerge. In the dance between certainty and ambiguity, one thing becomes clear: reality, like art, is never static—it is made and remade, questioned and reclaimed, again and again.

IST.FESTIVAL 2025

The 15th Anniversary Program | October 10–12 | Istanbul

Stretching across Bosphorus neighborhoods from Arnavutköy to Karaköy, the 15th Anniversary of IST.FESTIVAL transforms Istanbul into a stage for urgent questions and cross-disciplinary dialogue. For three days, leading voices in art, cinema, music, literature, architecture, design, photography, and fashion came together to debate, exchange, and imagine new realities.

Panel Conversations

Saturday, October 11

Jeff Koons in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
Art After the Algorithm: Surfaces, Symbols, and the Real
Jeff Koons, alongside Timothée Verrecchia, reflected on how everyday objects can be transformed into extraordinary works of art—from mirrored balloons to monumental icons. They discussed how notions of originality and authenticity evolve in an era shaped by AI and digital reproduction, and how art continues to assert its presence in the real.

Stefan Sagmeister in conversation with Julia Halperin
Designing the Real: From Album Covers to Algorithms
Sagmeister and Halperin explored the relationship between design, music, and technology, revisiting iconic album covers while considering what it means to create something tangible and real in a digital age overflowing with endless images. Their conversation highlighted how visual and auditory design shapes perception and belief.

Lou Doillon in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
Between Song and Silence: The Fragile Real of Performance
Lou Doillon shared her insights as a multidimensional artist, discussing how performance and voice navigate intimacy and exposure. Together with Timothée Verrecchia, she reflected on how the act of performing can reveal a delicate, undeniable truth in a world often obsessed with perfection.

Flavin Judd & Benjamin Paulin in conversation with Josh Hickey
Inheriting the Real: Legacy, Memory, and the Present
The panel examined artistic legacies, archives, and family histories, considering how memory remains vital without becoming static relics. Judd, Paulin, and Hickey explored how interpretation shapes the present and how historical material can continue to resonate meaningfully today.

Désiré Feuerle & Manuel Rabaté, Tricia Tuttle in conversation with Daniele Maruca
Sacred Realities: Curating the Invisible
Feuerle, Rabaté, Tuttle and Maruca discussed the unseen frameworks that guide perception in museums and private collections. They reflected on curation as both aesthetic and metaphysical practice, exploring how exhibitions transform absence into presence and turn carefully constructed illusions into felt experience.

Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) in conversation with Alphan Eşeli
Dreaming Across Worlds
Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi), together with Alphan Eşeli, reflected on creativity as a process of translation—how emotion, imagination, and narrative shape new realities. Their conversation traced the artist’s role as both dreamer and architect, constructing worlds that feel simultaneously intimate and mythic.

Sunday, October 12

Małgosia Bela & Marcin Masecki in conversation with Filip Niedenthal
MUSE: The Modern Muse Between Film and Sound
Bela and Masecki discussed the muse as an active collaborator rather than a passive figure, shaping creation as much as it inspires it. Following a screening of Paweł Pawlikowski’s short film MUSE, Masecki’s live piano performance took place, extending the film’s atmosphere into a new sonic dimension. The session concluded with a panel discussion, how inspiration evolves in an age of self-curation and hyper-visibility.

Inez & Vinoodh in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
The Image is the Real: Staged Truths in a Digital Age
Inez & Vinoodh explored how staged imagery and intimate portraiture blur the line between fantasy and reality. They discussed how tools like AI transform photography, making images not only record reality but actively shape it, reflecting on perception, mediation, and the fragile truth of the image.

Gaye Su Akyol in conversation with José Parlá
Consistent Fantasy is Reality
Akyol and Parlá examined how personal myth-making, aesthetic worlds, and imagination create alternative truths. They considered how consistent dreaming can act as a strategy for understanding reality, questioning how fantasy can express authenticity when the real feels constructed or scripted.

Ekin Bernay in conversation with Maria Abramenko
Bodies That Remember: Performance, Ritual, and the Real
Bernay and Abramenko discussed the body as both instrument and archive, where memory, trauma, and transformation converge. The conversation explored whether the body remains a reliable vessel of truth in a simulated world and how performance can restore a sense of reality beyond technological mediation.

NEARNESS Exhibition Artists, moderated by Ayla Jean Yackley
What is Really Real? On NEARNESS: A Neighborhood Exhibition
The closing panel gathered artists from NEARNESS: A Neighborhood Exhibition to reflect on how art can mirror, distort, and redefine what we consider real. Set within the living streets of Arnavutköy, the discussion explored how art connects people to place, to each other, and to the uncertain ground of reality itself.

NEARNESS: A NEIGHBORHOOD EXHIBITION

Laurent Grasso’s neon installation Panoptes, referencing the mythological figure Argos Panoptes, is presented on two façades of the ISTANBUL’74 building in collaboration with Perrotin.

Ben Frost’s site-specific sound installation Love Will Tear Us Apart, questioning the boundaries between perception, reality, and artificiality, can be experienced on the second floor of the ISTANBUL’74 gallery space.

José Parlá’s layered narratives on cultural memory, heritage, and urban identity unfold in his canvas work and ceramic installation titled What is Really Happening?, located in the creative space on the third floor of ISTANBUL’74.

Freeman & Lowe’s installation Mockingbird, referencing the Paris ‘68 movement, transforms the adjacent gallery space (No. 26A) into a semi-functional print studio.

Stefan Brüggemann’s Online Disconnected, with vinyl text over gold leaf, transforms the façade of the historic building at No.12.

Sheree Hovsepian’s video and sound installation The Difference Between Signals (2018) is on the first floor of ISTANBUL’74.

Turkish artists also make a strong presence in the exhibition:

Burhan Doğançay’s three works stand out with their layered compositions:

Door 154 (1991), mixed media on canvas, between 1st–2nd floor staircases.
Composition Noire No 2 (1990) and Madison Avenue (1965), displayed on the third floor.

In the third floor hallway:

Osman Dinç’s Africa Africa (three-part steel sculpture),
Gülay Semercioğlu’s Maximal Cube (wire and wood installation),
Kemal Seyhan’s Untitled (oil on canvas).

On the fourth floor and stairwells:

Lal Batman’s works: Bleu Fantôme, Maestro of Faces I Loved and Lost, and The Saint of Broken Hallelujah’s.

At Bonsai Çiçekçilik – Florist:

Nancy Atakan’s Walking in Two Worlds and What Was and What Was Not.

At Atalay Kasap – Butcher:

Standing Strong by Nancy Atakan.

At Papatya Dürüm:

Ali Elmacı’s large-scale painting We Are All Vampires Except One VIII.

In the windows of No.12:

Small-scale works from Elmacı’s Naber? series.

Ertuğrul Güngör & Faruk Ertekin’s ceramic works:

Fired Together at No.16,
Cloud Ride at No.17,
Dissolving in the Air on the 2nd floor of ISTANBUL’74.

Arslan Sükan’s Untitled 7 photograph is on view at Tevfik Orbay Store.

Exhibition Locations and Works:

ISTANBUL’74 – Beyazgül Street No.24

Façade

Panoptes (2024) by Laurent Grasso – neon installation (30 pieces, approx. 15.7 x 30.7 cm each)

Main Entrance

Hanger (2023) by Mehmet Ali Uysal – Polyester sculptures

1st Floor

The Difference Between Signals (2018) by Sheree Hovsepian – Video (20 min 20 sec)

1–2nd Floor Staircase

Door 154 (1991) by Burhan Doğançay – Mixed media on canvas

2nd Floor

Love Will Tear Us Apart (2025) by Ben Frost – Sound installation
Dissolving in the Air (2025) by Ertuğrul Güngör & Faruk Ertekin – Ceramic tiles and wood

3rd Floor

What is Really Happening? (2025) by José Parlá – Acrylic on canvas and ceramic installation
Composition Noire No 2 (1990) and Madison Avenue (1965) by Burhan Doğançay
Untitled (2025) by Kemal Seyhan – Oil on canvas
Africa Africa (2025) by Osman Dinç – Steel sculptures
Maximal Cube (2025) by Gülay Semercioğlu – Wire and wood installation

4th Floor

Works by Lal Batman: Bleu Fantôme, Maestro of Faces I Loved and Lost, The Saint of Broken Hallelujah’s

No.12

Online Disconnected (2020/2025) by Stefan Brüggemann – Vinyl on gold leaf wall
Naber? Series by Ali Elmacı – Oil on canvas

ISTANBUL’74 Side Gallery – No.26A

Mockingbird (2025) by Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe – Installation

Papatya Dürüm

We Are All Vampires Except One VIII (2024) by Ali Elmacı – Oil on canvas and PLA

Tevfik Orbay Store

Untitled 7 (2015) by Arslan Sükan – Inkjet on metallic paper, mounted on aluminum

No.16

Fired Together (2025) by Ertuğrul Güngör & Faruk Ertekin – Ceramic tiles

No.17

Cloud Ride (2024) by Ertuğrul Güngör & Faruk Ertekin – Ceramic vase with 18k gold

Bonsai Florist

Walking in Two Worlds (2024) and What Was and What Was Not (2022) by Nancy Atakan

Atalay Butcher

Standing Strong (2024) by Nancy Atakan – Wall installation

Note: In the exhibition realized by ISTANBUL’74, Laurent Grasso is presented in collaboration with Perrotin; Osman Dinç, Gülay Semercioğlu, Kemal Seyhan, and Nancy Atakan with Pi Artworks; Burhan Doğançay, Haan ArtHall; Ali Elmacı, DG Gallery; Ertuğrul Güngör & Faruk Ertekin with Anna Laudel Gallery, and Lal Batman with Pilevneli.

Exhibition

NEARNESS: A Neighborhood Exhibition

The line between the authentic and the artificial has thinned to a trace. We move through a world of images, staged gestures, and endless appearances, yet what we call reality often slips past us. For Heidegger, reality is never simply given as a fixed ground. It discloses itself as Being—unfolding in moments of presence, of nearness, of unconcealment.

To ask What is Really Real? is not to seek a definition but to prepare a clearing. It is to pause and let things come forth in their own time. It is to dwell with the world, rather than stand apart from it.

For its fifteenth year, IST.FESTIVAL returns to Istanbul, to Arnavutköy. This neighborhood is not a backdrop but a site of dwelling: its streets pulse with memory, its rhythms carry time, its gestures remind us of belonging. Here, the festival does not occupy space but lets space reveal itself. Between the butcher and the barbershop, the café and the pier, the everyday itself becomes luminous: a poem glimpsed from a window, a sound resonating through a stairwell, a performance unfolding between parked cars.

Artists are invited not only to present works, but to enter into dialogue with place itself. Together they enact what Heidegger called Aletheia-unconcealment, the sudden showing of what was hidden. What emerges is not an exhibition with a single center, but a constellation of events, each one provisional and fragile. Some works draw upon the city’s sedimented layers, others upon its restless pace. Some call us to linger, others dissolve into the everyday. All share a desire to glimpse the real not as a stable essence, but as something lived, momentary, shared.

In times of uncertainty, we hold close the nearness of what gathers us: the hum of shared space, the presence of others. Reality is not merely what is seen but how we see, and with whom. It is not distant abstraction but dwelling, a belonging together in place and time.

This year’s festival is guided by such a vision: inspired by Heidegger’s reflections on Being, truth, and dwelling, we turn not to the abstract, but to the lived reality of a neighborhood. The exhibition becomes not a display, but an opening, an invitation to encounter, to dwell, to recognize.

So, what is really real? Perhaps not something we define once and for all, but something that arises like a sudden clearing when we meet the world, and each other, with openness.

We welcome you into our neighborhood.
May you leave not with final answers, but with the trace of presence, and the quiet wonder of something true.

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN
Online Disconnected (2020/2025)

BEN FROST
Love Will Tear Us Apart (2025)

JOSÉ PARLÁ
What is Really Happening? (2025)

SHEREE HOVSEPIAN
The Difference Between Signals (2018)

ALİ ELMACI
Hepimiz vampiriz birimiz hariç VIII (2024)

ALİ ELMACI
Naber? I, II, III, V, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII

NANCY ATAKAN
Walking in Two Worlds (2024) & What Was and What Was Not (2022)

BURHAN DOĞANÇAY
Composition Noire No 2 (1990)

ERTUĞRUL GÜNGÖR & FARUK ERTEKİN
Fired Together (2025) & Cloud Ride (2024)

ERTUĞRUL GÜNGÖR & FARUK ERTEKİN
Dissolving in the Air (2025)

LAL BATMAN
Maestro of Faces I Loved and Lost (2025)

LAL BATMAN
The Saint of Broken Hallelujah’s (2025)

All NEW YORK DINNER PARIS DINNER WELCOME DINNER PANELS GALA DINNER HALAS 71 CLOSING DINNER

Financial Times Globetrotter
October 2025

Jeff Koons in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
“Art After the Algorithm: Surfaces, Symbols, and the Real”

Jeff Koons, alongside Timothée Verrecchia, reflected on how everyday objects can be transformed into extraordinary works of art—from mirrored balloons to monumental icons. They discussed how notions of originality and authenticity evolve in an era shaped by AI and digital reproduction, and how art continues to assert its presence in the real.

Stefan Sagmeister in conversation with Julia Halperin
“Designing the Real: From Album Covers to Algorithms”

Sagmeister and Halperin explored the relationship between design, music, and technology, revisiting iconic album covers while considering what it means to create something tangible and real in a digital age overflowing with endless images. Their conversation highlighted how visual and auditory design shapes perception and belief

Lou Doillon in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
“Between Song and Silence: The Fragile Real of Performance”

Lou Doillon shTimothée Verrecchias a multidimensional artist, discussing how performance and voice navigate intimacy and exposure. Together with Timothée Verrecchia, she reflected on how the act of performing can reveal a delicate, undeniable truth in a world often obsessed with perfection.

Flavin Judd & Benjamin Paulin in conversation with Josh Hickey
“Inheriting the Real: Legacy, Memory, and the Present”

Feuerle, Rabaté, Tuttle and Maruca discussed the unseen frameworks that guide perception in museums and private collections. They reflected on curation as both aesthetic and metaphysical practice, exploring how exhibitions transform absence into presence and turn carefully constructed illusions into felt experience.

Désiré Feuerle & Manuel Rabaté, Tricia Tuttle in conversation with Daniele Maruca
“Sacred Realities: Curating the Invisible”

Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) in conversation with Alphan Eşeli
“Dreaming Across Worlds”

Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi), together with Alphan Eşeli, reflected on creativity as a process of translation—how emotion, imagination, and narrative shape new realities. Their conversation traced the artist’s role as both dreamer and architect, constructing worlds that feel simultaneously intimate and mythic.

Małgosia Bela & Marcin Masecki in conversation with Filip Niedenthal
“MUSE: The Modern Muse Between Film and Sound”

Bela and Masecki discussed the muse as an active collaborator rather than a passive figure, shaping creation as much as it inspires it. Following a screening of Paweł Pawlikowski’s short film MUSE, Masecki’s live piano performance took place, extending the film’s atmosphere into a new sonic dimension. The session concluded with a panel discussion, how inspiration evolves in an age of self-curation and hyper-visibility.

Inez & Vinoodh in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
“The Image is the Real: Staged Truths in a Digital Age”

Inez & Vinoodh explored how staged imagery and intimate portraiture blur the line between fantasy and reality. They discussed how tools like AI transform photography, making images not only record reality but actively shape it, reflecting on perception, mediation, and the fragile truth of the image.

Gaye Su Akyol in conversation with José Parlá
“Consistent Fantasy is Reality”

Akyol and Parlá examined how personal myth-making, aesthetic worlds, and imagination create alternative truths. They considered how consistent dreaming can act as a strategy for understanding reality, questioning how fantasy can express authenticity when the real feels constructed or scripted.

Ekin Bernay in conversation with Maria Abramenko
“Bodies That Remember: Performance, Ritual, and the Real”

Bernay and Abramenko discussed the body as both instrument and archive, where memory, trauma, and transformation converge. The conversation explored whether the body remains a reliable vessel of truth in a simulated world and how performance can restore a sense of reality beyond technological mediation.

NEARNESS Exhibition Artists, moderated by Ayla Jean Yackley
“What is Really Real? On NEARNESS: A Neighborhood Exhibition”

The closing panel gathered artists from NEARNESS: A Neighborhood Exhibition to reflect on how art can mirror, distort, and redefine what we consider real. Set within the living streets of Arnavutköy, the discussion explored how art connects people to place, to each other, and to the uncertain ground of reality itself.

Flavin Judd & Benjamin Paulin in conversation with Josh Hickey

The fourth panel of the 15th Anniversary Edition of the Istanbul International Arts & Culture Festival — IST.FESTIVAL — brought together Flavin Judd and Benjamin Paulin in…

Lou Doillon in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia

The third panel of the 15th Anniversary Edition of the Istanbul International Arts & Culture Festival — IST.FESTIVAL — featured a conversation between Lou Doillon and Timothée…

Stefan Sagmeister in conversation with Julia Halperin

15th Anniversary Edition of the Istanbul International Arts & Culture Festival — IST.FESTIVAL, featured a conversation between Stefan Sagmeister and Julia Halperin, titled Designing the Real: From…

Jeff Koons in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia

ISTANBUL’74 is an independent multidisciplinary platform founded by Demet Müftüoğlu-Eşeli and filmmaker Alphan Eşeli in 2009. Thriving on creative exchange, ISTANBUL’74 curates and organizes various activities, including The Istanbul InternationalArts & Culture Festival (IST. FESTIVAL), exhibitions, public installations, cultural events, andartistic collaborations across the world. Committed to challenging the status quo, and pushing boundaries, ISTANBUL’74 forges new creative and cultural connections through its divisions, leveraging an unparalleled network of industry leaders, influential artists, and tastemakers.

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IST. ARTS & CULTURE FESTIVAL

IST.FESTIVAL 2025

10-12 October 2025

IST.FESTIVAL 15th Anniversary Highlights: What is Really Real?

IST.FESTIVAL 15th Anniversary Edition: Special Moments

JEFF KOONS

INEZ & VINOODH

SCOTT MESCUDI (KID CUDI)

LOU DOILLON

FLAVIN JUDD

MALGOSIA BELA

SHEREE HOVSEPIAN

MARCIN MASECKI

STEFAN SAGMEISTER

JONAH FREEMAN

JOSÉ PARLÁ

DÉSIRÉ FEUERLE

TRICIA TUTTLE

MANUEL RABATÉ

TIMOTHÉE VERRECCHIA

BENJAMIN PAULIN

FILIP NIEDENTHAL

EKİN BERNAY

BEN FROST

WARIS AHLUWALIA

JOSH HICKEY

DANIELE MARUCA

MARIA ABRAMENKO

JULIA HALPERIN

AYLA JEAN YACKLEY

GAYE SU AKYOL

ALPHAN EŞELİ

FREEMAN & LOWE

Ben Frost

JOSÉ PARLÁ

SHEREE HOVSEPIAN

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN

LAURENT GRASSO

ALİ ELMACI

GÜLAY SEMERCİOĞLU

OSMAN DİNÇ

ERTUĞRUL GÜNGÖR & FARUK ERTEKİN

BURHAN DOĞANÇAY

LAL BATMAN

ARSLAN SÜKAN

KEMAL SEYHAN

NANCY ATAKAN

SUZAN SABANCI

DÉSIRÉ FEUERLE

ROBERT BURKE

TIMOTHÉE VERRECCHIA

JOSÉ PARLÁ

JOSH HICKEY

IST.ARTS & CULTURE FESTIVAL 2025 Theme

What is Really Real?

IST.FESTIVAL 2025

Exhibition

LAURENT GRASSO

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN

BEN FROST

FREEMAN & LOWE

JOSÉ PARLÁ

JOSÉ PARLÁ

SHEREE HOVSEPIAN

ALİ ELMACI

ALİ ELMACI

NANCY ATAKAN

NANCY ATAKAN

OSMAN DİNÇ

GÜLAY SEMERCİOĞLU

KEMAL SEYHAN

BURHAN DOĞANÇAY

BURHAN DOĞANÇAY

BURHAN DOĞANÇAY

ERTUĞRUL GÜNGÖR & FARUK ERTEKİN

ERTUĞRUL GÜNGÖR & FARUK ERTEKİN

ARSLAN SÜKAN

LAL BATMAN

LAL BATMAN

LAL BATMAN

Jeff Koons in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
“Art After the Algorithm: Surfaces, Symbols, and the Real”

Stefan Sagmeister in conversation with Julia Halperin
“Designing the Real: From Album Covers to Algorithms”

Lou Doillon in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
“Between Song and Silence: The Fragile Real of Performance”

Flavin Judd & Benjamin Paulin in conversation with Josh Hickey
“Inheriting the Real: Legacy, Memory, and the Present”

Désiré Feuerle & Manuel Rabaté, Tricia Tuttle in conversation with Daniele Maruca
“Sacred Realities: Curating the Invisible”

Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi) in conversation with Alphan Eşeli
“Dreaming Across Worlds”

Małgosia Bela & Marcin Masecki in conversation with Filip Niedenthal
“MUSE: The Modern Muse Between Film and Sound”

Inez & Vinoodh in conversation with Timothée Verrecchia
“The Image is the Real: Staged Truths in a Digital Age”

Gaye Su Akyol in conversation with José Parlá
“Consistent Fantasy is Reality”

Ekin Bernay in conversation with Maria Abramenko
“Bodies That Remember: Performance, Ritual, and the Real”

NEARNESS Exhibition Artists, moderated by Ayla Jean Yackley
“What is Really Real? On NEARNESS: A Neighborhood Exhibition”

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