'READING THE CITY OF SIGNS: ISTANBUL: REVEALED OR MYSTIFIED?'

Exhibition: Tuesday 17 June - Friday 25 July 2003

Six graphic designers from the London College of Printing spent two weeks in Istanbul, in April; working in collaboration with colleagues from Istanbul Bilgi University, on a project entitled 'Reading the City of Signs: Istanbul: revealed or mystified?'
The project was inspired by three propositions by Italian writer Italo Calvino, in his book Invisible Cities's. In an age of Global Consumer Tourism, Calvino's book is particularly relevant, as it invites us to distrust the masks through which a city presents itself to its potential visitors, as well as to its own citizens: 'Your gaze scans the street as if they were written pages: the city says everything you must think, makes you repeat her discourse, and while you believe you are visiting X you are only recording the names with which she defines herself and all her parts' (Cities and Signs, 1). The project provided a challenge to both teams-outsiders and insiders-in their collaborative effort to produce discrete readings of the 'City of Signs', through a poetic and self-critical use of photography, sound, text, typography, etc.

For further information about the project and team members:
http://www.research.linst.ac.uk/cityofsigns

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