Artist Residency at Caravansari in Istanbul, 18 March to 31 May 2013

Arrived Monday mid-afternoon, with little experience of famed Istanbuli traffic. Julie, one of the organizers of Caravansari, met me where the taxi driver dropped me on the street corner closest to the residency building, since the street is so narrow and full of delivery and transit vans supplying the wholesale sellers of goods the taxi could not navigate to the door. This area, Perşembe Pazarı, is known for plumbing, electrical, surface finish materials, and hardware and is a bricoleur's paradise.

Looking down the street, down the hill towards the Golden Horn:

and looking up the hill towards Bankalar Caddesi, where the Ottoman bank is (not visible in the image).

The bank building has been split laterally, and the eastern half is now occupied by SALT Galata, an art space: http://saltonline.org/en/anasayfa

My first night I met the other two artists in resident, Laleh Torabi from Berlin and Ughetta Dallimonti, also from London. Ughetta is just here for a month and Laleh and I will be here for the same amount of time. The four of us ate dinner at a restaurant specializing in a regional Antakya (ancient Antioch) cooking - mezes and a very interesting meat dish.

Since the best way to get to know a new place is through food, my initial forays into vegetables included aubergine, onions, tomatoes and courgettes, the light green skinned variety - a kg of each cost around 3TL, or a little over a quid each. Package goods are much more expensive. Lunch on Tuesday therefore was a version of ratatouille with lentils:

Sat outside in the bright sunshine on the roof terrace here, from which Ayasofya/Hagia Sofya and the minarets of the Blue Mosque are visible.

I had also previously discovered a yoghurt drink called ayran, and the low-fat yoghurt here is delicious! (pink means low-fat here):

Yesterday Julie walked me around the 'up the hill' area, and today we walked around the 'down the hill' area, including the fish market, a 8 min walk:

These three fish were 10TL, about £3.6, and the seller gutted and chopped off their heads (didn't want them smelling up the rubbish). They are marinating in ayran, with chopped fresh dill and some type of fresh spring garlic. I may roll them in a little maize meal and then sautee in butter/oil tonight for dinner after we go to a PV in a new gallery space at a local department store.

The azan, or call to prayer, is broadcast several times a day - a few hours before dawn (noticed it this morning but promptly went back to sleep), midday, in the afternoon , and then again at dusk. The early morning call seems to come from a single source, but the other iterations seem to come from two different mosques, as there is a distinct delay, a muddling of the sounds and the times, a blurring of the tones. My second sonic event here, the first being the sound of running water under the sewer grills in the streets.