Armenian photographer Maryam Şahinyan’s works displayed in Istanbul

PanARMENIAN.Net - Salt Galata, Istanbul, is currently hosting a project by artist and researcher Tayfun Serttaş, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

The artist is aiming to discover the cultural heritage of Istanbul via the photographic archive of Armenian photographer Maryam Şahinyan.

The project is based on the revisualization of the complete professional archive of Şahinyan, who was born in the Central Anatolian province of Sivas in 1911 and died in Istanbul in 1996.

Şahinyan worked as a photographer at her modest studio called Foto Galatasaray uninterruptedly from 1935 until 1985. The archive is a unique inventory of the demographic transformations that occurred in the socio-cultural map of Istanbul after the declaration of the Republic and the historical period it witnessed; it is also a chronological record of an Istanbul-based female studio photographer’s professional career.

Beyond the fact that she was a photographer and owned a studio, there is little information about Şahinyan.

“When she retired from the studio in 1985, Şahinyan left behind a unique visual archive made up of approximately 200,000 images. She passed away at her home on Hanımefendi Sokak in Şişli in 1996 and is buried in the Şişli Armenian Cemetery,” said Serttaş.