1971, İdil. Lives in Diyarbakır.

Şener Özmen’s guidebook titled İstanbul Guide aims to reproduce the highly useful information content of the İstanbul centered city guides marketed for tourists but from the pen of an artist who only visits İstanbul for exhibitions and related activities. In the words of the artist: ‘The linguistic system of İstanbul Guide is sustained extensively through my preference for Plastic-Narrative. I shall expect people who read the guide to ask, “where
is this İstanbul?”’. Şener Özmen’s book which narrates İstanbul and ‘all its conventional destructions’ in the guise of a ‘plastic-narrative’ by appropriating the standard city guide format, is a striking book that takes in a spectrum ranging from the art of Islamic calligraphy, ceramics and the art of painting; to the fantastic lives of celebrities like Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie, Pierre Loti, Lord Byron, Adam Mickiewicz and Florence Nightingale who visited İstanbul in the past.

Şener Özmen

www.elastikv2.org

ANTREPO NO: 5