Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA.ir), Berica Nevin Berberoğlu was born in Ankara, the daughter of a French father and an Iranian mother. But she says she’s more Turkish than anyone else -- that is how connected she feels to her country of birth.
And it is for that precise reason that Berberoğlu says she is working to create a lasting artistic impression of İstanbul, a city she has a great deal of admiration for. She photographs architecture in the city, and says she sees all of life in frames. “I’m writing my book by that light,” she says, all her attention on İstanbul’s mosques.
İstanbul, the only city with a soul
Berberoğlu’s father, a consulate worker, gifted her a camera when she was 6 years old, introducing her to the world of photography at a young age. “Since that day, I became a child that constantly took photographs of things around me,” she says. But she was forced at one point to take a break from her hobby -- until she moved from Ankara to İstanbul. She studied economics at Ankara University, and spent time building up her career in her own field. But one day she decided to move to İstanbul, a city that she had visited frequently for various reasons. Through her life Berberoğlu has lived in 35 countries for differing periods of time, including the United States, England and India -- but to her, İstanbul stands out from amongst all the rest.
“If there is a heaven on earth, then in my view that is İstanbul. I believe that cities live and become more beautiful along with people. If you take all the people out of this city, it will still go on living. I believe İstanbul is the only city in the world that has a soul. Take all the people out of it and it will continue to live,” she says.
Moving to İstanbul also enabled Berberoğlu to take up her childhood hobby of photography professionally. After receiving three years of photography training in New York, she had never wanted to abandon picture-taking again -- which brought her around to her focus on İstanbul’s mosques, because she has a special connection with mosques. Berberoğlu says that when she was 11 years old, she had a dream which led her to becoming a Muslim. At that time, she says, “It was the right thing and I did it.” Yet she declines to share further details on the dream she had and the experiences it led to.
After converting to Islam, mosques became a sort of home away from home for her; she says she feels more comfortable at mosques than even at home. Whenever she is bored, in poor spirits or wants to spend time alone, she looks for a nearby mosque to go to. Her relationship with mosques continued in İstanbul. The city is a treasure trove of mosques, so there is no dearth of sites for her to discover, see and photograph. Berberoğlu’s passion became reading art history, learning the history of mosques and photographing them.
One day after praying at the Üryanizade Mosque in Üsküdar, Berberoğlu’s “İstanbul’s Waterside Mosques” project was born. Berberoğlu, who has photographed many mosques -- including the İskender Paşa Mosque, the Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Mosque, the Yeni Mosque, the Ortaköy Mosque and the Vaniköy Mosque -- presented her project to the İstanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture (ECOC) Agency in hopes of publishing her work in book format. She has yet to receive a response from the agency, which is running the events and projects for İstanbul this year in the city’s capacity as a European Capital of Culture, but she is determined to bring her project to life no matter what.
“The waterside mosques project grew out of my wish to leave something lasting to this city of İstanbul after moving here. I said to myself, let me do something that has not been done -- and this is what I decided,” she says. This isn’t her first work focusing on mosques, either. She is currently working on two projects having to do with mosques and the city: “100 of İstanbul’s Mosques” for İstanbul Kültür A.Ş. and “İstanbul through Time” for TURİNG.
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