Nightwatch

2004
Video, 10min 40sec

Video stills

This video documents from afar one of the nocturnal bazaars taking place at the outskirts of Istanbul where thousands of the most improbable items change hands. It is a huge economy within the expanding periphery of Istanbul where massive amounts of products circulate every night. These are the areas of the ‘gecekondu’ (meaning built overnight), constructed rapidly and mostly without proper permissions in order to host the millions of poverty-stricken immigrants from the mainland of Turkey. Men are using torch lights to locate their treasure in the dark, in stark contrast with the well advertised “traditional” bazaars located in the heart of the touristic Istanbul center.