40 Stations/New York: A Photography Exhibition by Muammer Yanmaz

Co-sponsored by the Turkish Culture and Tourism Office, Mavi Jeans, and The Marmara-Manhattan

Reception: May 5, 2005
6:00 pm-8:00 pm

Exhibition: May 5-31, 2005
11:00 am-7:00 pm

The Gallery at The Marmara-Manhattan
301 East 94th Street
(at Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10128

Free admission

The Moon and Stars Project Grants and Visual Arts Departments, along with the Turkish Culture and Tourism Office, The Marmara-Manhattan, and Mavi Jeans, is proud to present 40 Stations/New York, a series of photographs of Turkish-Americans in the subway station of their choice. After completing their joint project 40 Stations/Paris, photographer Muammer Yanmaz and project director Selen Akçali submitted a grant to the Moon and Stars Project to undertake a similar project in the subways of New York. Thus, the realization of this exhibition – one in a series of 40 Stations in bustling metropolises around the world – was made possible as a direct result of the Turkish and Turkish-American communities’ cooperative efforts to support the arts.

Expanding the Options

There are only a few moments in life when there is only one option. Subway stations are one of them. When one goes through that turnstile, by all odds, one will step into a subway car. There is not much point in going back. No one goes back anyway for the fare is paid in advance.

However, the photographer is not satisfied with this single option and introduces 40 New Yorkers to another option: of walking down to a subway station to have their pictures taken instead of taking the train. The common denominator of these 40 individuals is being of Turkish origin. At the forefront are their faces. In what remains of the two dimensions of the photograph, loom the mirrors of the city they dwell in – the subway stations. The subjects are not caught off-guard by the snap of the camera as they know they are not in the station to take a train. They see the photographer and they pose for him. For the first time, they are not left with a single option at hand. They are not 40 individuals; they are 40 individualities who have expanded their options.

Photographer Muammer Yanmaz carries 40 Stations to New York after Paris, the project’s first stop, which he initiated with Selen Akçali. The project was born when Muammer and Selen, who attended the same high school at different times, coincidentally met on the internet, and developed when Paris-resident Selen contacted people of Turkish origin living in the city and invited them to be photographed by Muammer. The promising reviews from the Paris exhibition encouraged the duo to hit the road for New York City. The fact that the distance to their homeland increased served to ease the photographer-subject interaction by drawing out pre-shoot chitchats and taking them to a more congenial level; the collective consciousness transformed them from photographer-subject relationships to those of host and guest.

The next stop is London, to be followed by another metropolis. The last stop is going to be an impressive book that will include narrations by each person portrayed. 40 Stations can also be evaluated as a sociological document because every urban-dwelling model bears the characteristics of the city in question. As the train arrives at the last stop in the Paris Metro, the conductor announces “Terminus.” The “terminus” of Yanmaz and Akçali is an inspiring, socio-photographic document. To intervene in the probabilities is dangerous because…

Izzeddin Çalislar

Our special thanks to Mine Özpinar and Zishan Ugurlu of The Gallery at The Marmara-Manhattan, Ali Çetinkaya of Gallery 53, Emel Armutçu, Gökhan Aydin, H. Mümtaz Çimen, H. Esra Çizmeci, Zeynep Güven, Sedef Kürüm, Mesut Saraç, Mükremin Seçim, Serdar Ilhan, and Ismail Hakki Oral.