Muse of the museum: an allegoric story of a non existent photography museum in Turkey

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1505262_(Table of contents)

Museums offer material conditions of existence and indications that constitute a sound basis of culture. Therefore studying the existence (or non existence) of museums can tell us a lot about the cultural state of a society. Turkish museums were mostly regarded as collectors of archives and the importance of artistic appreciation always had a secondary place. Photography has also taken its share from this approach and always been treated as a witness to history rather than an art form. Therefore no priority was given to a contemporary photography museum for decades and in the year 2012, Turkey is still in need of one. The purpose of this study is to uncover the layers of a non existent photography museum in Turkey to have an indept analysis of the emerging strata. Contemporary photography museum is chosen as the representational medium for this aim since lack of a contemporary photography museum has a significant allegory in the history of photography in Turkey and photography in itself is a transparent means of access to the underlying reasons. To reveal these underlying social, economic, political and cultural reasons avoiding the construction of such a museum, museology studies and worldwide museum practices will be analyzed. In the light of the analysis, this study will also seek to provide a comparison and a prototype of a contemporary photography museum that will best meet the needs of Turkish photography, photographers, photography students, researchers and the society.