This year, IST.FESTIVAL marks its 15th anniversary with a lineup of programming that will have the Turkish capital awash in public art installations, conversations, and performances. For the arts and culture festival’s annual theme, its founders, Demet Müftüoğlu-Eşeli and Alphan Eşeli, chose to meet an unstable moment with a question, rather than a statement: “What Is Really Real?”
To help address this thorny query, the duo tapped Iranian-American Nazy Nazhand to act as Arts & Culture director of ISTANBUL’74 and, with her vision, have assembled a chorus of answers. The advisor and longtime curator brought the full force of her expertise to bear in spotlighting emerging art scenes and platforming timely sociopolitical discourse: “This year’s curatorial theme follows the festival’s continued interest in how our sense of reality is being reshaped,” Nazhand told CULTURED, “both in daily life and in the larger realms of politics and work.”
IST.FESTIVAL’s 15th-anniversary program features an exhibition that takes the theme as its title, and it’s accompanied by three days of cross-disciplinary dialogue with the likes of Jeff Koons, Flavin Judd, Stefan Sagmeister, Lou Doillon, and Kid Cudi—not to mention CULTURED’s own editor-at-large, Julia Halperin.
CULTURED sat down with Nazhand to discuss some of her personal highlights from IST.FESTIVAL’s three jam-packed days of programming, which run from Oct. 10-12.
CULTURED: What makes the IST festival unique?
Nazy Nazhand: IST.FESTIVAL is about dialogue across cultures and disciplines—from film, fashion, and art to literature, music, and architecture. It was founded by Demet Müftüoğlu-Eşeli and Alphan Eşeli on the belief that when different creatives come together, new and unexpected conversations emerge. Drawing on their own backgrounds and personal circles of artists, filmmakers, writers, and thinkers, they created an organic platform for cultural exchange. Over the past 15 years, it has evolved into a space where acclaimed international figures find themselves in dialogues that transcend borders and disciplines.
CULTURED: You have focused much of your work on contemporary art in emerging regions. How does that focus come into play in your work for IST this year?
Nazhand: As Arts & Culture director of ISTANBUL’74, I have the chance to complement the founders’ relationships and thematic direction with my own practice and network. On a personal note, I’m delighted to invite brilliant artists, thinkers, and friends with whom I’ve built long professional relationships to join IST.FESTIVAL and share the stage with other visionaries.
CULTURED: The question guiding this year’s programming is “What is Really Real?” How do you see this question reflected in the programming you’ve developed?
Nazhand: This year’s focus continues a curatorial thread that has long been central to the Festival’s ethos. At a moment when artificial intelligence is accelerating, authoritarianism is on the rise, and technology is used to blur the line between fact and fiction, this theme feels especially pressing. We believe artists and intellectuals have a responsibility to keep questioning these shifts and to bring them to light. The panels will bring together creatives from diverse perspectives and backgrounds, discussing some of the most pressing and challenging issues of our time. They bring forth unique and unpredictable perspectives.
CULTURED: What are you most excited for viewers to experience at this year’s IST.FESTIVAL?
Nazhand: I’m particularly excited about the main exhibition encompassing the historic neighborhood of Arnavutköy along the Bosphorus, where ISTANBUL’74 operates from a five-story historical wooden building. The exhibition, titled after the festival’s theme, “What is Really Real,” will consist of indoor and outdoor site-specific activations by Sheree Hovsepian, Stefan Brüggemann, Paola Pivi, Laurent Grasso, Ben Frost, and Feeman & Lowe, among others, transforming public and private spaces (butcher shop, flower shop, café, and historical facades) into unexpected encounters between art and the neighborhood’s daily rhythms.
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