Kerim Suner’s solo exhibition “When” will be open to visitors at Yapı Kredi bomontiada between May 2–22, 2026.
Amid the chaos of Istanbul and the ephemerality of the digital world, photographer Kerim Suner chooses to arrest time by capturing it on glass plates. A product of an obsession spanning more than a decade, this project is not merely a photography exhibition, but also stands as a manifesto of an intellectual resistance to technological change.
In this journey Suner transforms what is essentially his lifeblood — his passion for historical photography — into a vast documentation project. He recorded Istanbul’s cross-temporal face at 72 different locations, using a van converted into a mobile laboratory, a tent that kept him company, and a wooden bellows camera.
In contrast to today’s sterile digital images, Suner employs time-honored photographic techniques that merge chemistry and art—many now at risk of oblivion—such as wet collodion, platinum-palladium printing, albumen printing, opaltype, and orotone. This selection, distilled from 751 handmade negative and positive glass plates, demonstrates that photography is not merely an act of “capturing an image,” but a production process in its own right.
From the depths of Yarımburgaz Cave, where the earliest traces of human presence in Istanbul were discovered, to the city’s modern skyline, the exhibition’s most striking section features an 11-meter-long panoramic view of Istanbul composed of seven frames. Beside this monumental work, each frame brought to life under the shadow of the veteran tent — installed within the exhibition space itself — offers viewers a reality at the molecular level of photography.