A collection is more than the sum of the works brought together within it. It bears traces of changing interests, encounters and, at times, ideas reconsidered over the years.
Presented at Akaretler as part of Artweeks Istanbul, Reunion / Kavuşma, a selection from the Banu & Hakan Çarmıklı Collection, makes this personal and evolving character of collecting visible.
The collection has developed since the İlk Raunt exhibition in 2018, with a notable place given to women artists and feminist approaches. This concerns not only who is represented in a collection, but also which stories are made visible.
İpek Duben’s Şerife series, produced in the early 1980s, is a significant example in this context. Taking as its starting point a woman who migrated to Istanbul and earned her living through domestic work, the series raises questions of social class, women’s labour and visibility.
A broader question about collecting emerges here: what responsibility does acquiring a work for a private collection entail towards the experience it represents?
Bringing private collections into public view offers one space in which to discuss this question. A work moves beyond the collector’s personal world and opens itself to interpretations by different viewers.
In this sense, Reunion / Kavuşma is more than a reunion. It also offers an opportunity to consider how collections change over time and which social narratives they can carry.
On 6 November, the talk “Another Story: The Women Artists in Our Collection”, featuring Banu Çarmıklı, will offer an opportunity to hear this discussion from the collector’s own perspective.
Artweeks Istanbul — Collectors’ Edition
Akaretler, Istanbul · 17 September – 8 November 2026
Friday 6 November · 14:00 · Banu Çarmıklı
Moderator: Sabiha Kurtulmuş
Programme: Artweeks Istanbul. Images and collection information: Gazete Oksijen — Elif Tanrıyar, 18 September 2026.