2010 Osmanmodern: Photoroute From Istanbul to Beirut Across the Schools of Tanzîmat
Nazionalità: Italia
Categoria: Urban Studies/ Photography
Project Description:

Osmanmodern is an itinerant on-site investigation about the process of modernization undertaken by the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the XIXth century, today known as Tanzîmat Era (1869–1876). In particular, it focuses on the first Ottoman attempt to create an imperial public education system and states that this attempt assumed a twofold meaning: 1) edifying, with education, the people, and; edifying physically, with new buildings, the Empire and its cities.

Osmanmodern researches, through urban studies and photography’s digital and analogical technique, the role of the modern school buildings as generators of urban fabric and social dynamics in the major cities of Middle East. The journey leading to Osmanmodern starts in Istanbul and ends in Rhodes. With the support of the Foundation, the research is organized as a photoroute, crossing several cities: Izmit, Bursa, Baliksehir, Izmir, Konya, and Adana in Turkey; Aleppo, Hama and Damascus in Syria, and; Beirut in Lebanon. Landscapes, Cities and Stories collected from Bosphorus to Euphrate Valley, fill diaries and are impressed on numerous films that will then compose the final exhibition held at the Turkish Mansion in Rhodes, in April 2011.

Biography of the winner:

Giuseppe Alizzi was born in Sicily in 1985. After graduating in architecture in Milan in 2010, he spends a long period in the former Ottoman Empire’s territories, researching on behalf of the Foundation Marc de Montalembert, realising the reportage Osmanmodern: Photoroute Across the Schools of Tanzîmat. The everyday life experienced in Syria is impressed on films and diaries. In 2016, the Syrian films and diaries compose the book Sham Sham. Persone Cose e Luoghi Siriani (Mesogea). In the same year, Giuseppe Alizzi launches the multimedia project Sham Sham. Exhibiting Syria Without Wrecks (shamsham.org) aimed at sensitising about the scope of the ongoing destruction, by showing Syria, its People, Places and Things before they were reduced to wrecks, getting the attention of international media. In 2017, Giuseppe Alizzi presents Shamiyat, video installation composed of photographic blow-ups and brief texts for Middle East Now! Festival in Florence. Currently Giuseppe Alizzi lives in Brussels and works, as urban planner, in Milan.

Result of the project:

The results of the research compose Osmanmodern, a photographic exhibition organised with the support of the Foundation at the Turkish Mansion of Rhodes, in April 2011.