Interview with the Artist: Julia Totino

Ahead of each edition, the Bosphorus Review seeks out artists who reside in, or have strong links with Istanbul, to come up with our cover art. The artists are given completely free reign to come up with something that reflects our home city according to their own personal musings and unique style. For this month’s edition, we pounced on Üksüdar-based photographer and artist Julia Totino, who came up with the design you can check out at the top of our home page.

We poured a çay and asked Totino a little more about what she has been up to, how her craft is developing, and how she would describe her links to the city:

Hi Julia! Firstly, thanks for being fantastic and spending time to help conjure up the Bosphorus Review’s front cover art for our January 2020 edition. Let’s start by asking about you. How did you end up in Istanbul?

 Thank you so much for the opportunity! Well this is a fun question to answer really....I first travelled here a decade ago, then returned again in 2011, 2012, 2013, each time staying longer until I finally dropped my anchor in 2015 and have been here since. My initial interest in Istanbul was sparked by several things: a childhood curiousity provoked by “The Wind in the Willows” television program (wherein Ratty meets a mysterious seafaring rat on his way to then-Contantinople), the Sufi poetry of Mevlana (which I actually became interested in because Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy was a Sufi, not even joking as absurd as it sounds), as well as a fascination for anything old or pointy. Istanbul is a pretty old place, and a pointy city, minarets and all. Really, honestly though, nothing can easily or simply explain my connection to this city and I rather like it that way.

Tell us a little bit about your artistic background. How has your work evolved so far and what influences do you draw from?

 I studied painting during my Bachelor’s degree in Canada way back in the early 2000’s. I always had a fascination for text and mixed media, and was creating collages and assemblages. My graduation piece in 2006 was a collection of dozens and dozens of hand built wooden squares, covered in text and thick layers of paint and weird drawings of exotic animals and anxious looking humanoids. These mostly ended up taking up space in my dad’s garage, which was when I pragmatically switched to poetry and writing as artistic expression, as I became essentially a person of no fixed address, with a compulsive desire to travel.  In 2018 I decided to go back to photography (which I had dabbled with in 2007 as I worked at a Camera shop). I bought an old SLR camera here in Istanbul and it was love at first shutter click. My influences are super varied, from other film photographers like Elsa Bleda and Basim Magdy, to Baroque painters like Caravaggio, to a variety of poets and writers. I am always drawn to extreme contrast and a sort of punk attitude and aesthetic; surreal and neon colours, as well as a certain melancholic or symbolic poetic narrative in the urban experience. Even classic painters like Hopper, I love the melancholy of his paintings, his colours and this lonely, strange urban environment. I find image and text to be almost impossible for me to seperate from one another, and I love the way words themselves look.

How would you describe your connection to Istanbul and how have you incorporated this connection into the artwork you’ve provided?

Istanbul is definitely my muse - and occasionally my tempestuous, difficult lover. It sometimes does my head in with its chaos and crowds, but it’s also an endless source of inspiration with its layers of history and mythology and colourful signage I still cannot fully read. (I also have a similar connection to Cairo but dont tell Istanbul) . My cover for this issue of Bosphorus Review of books is a montage of some of my favourite film photos taken in Istanbul as part of my final grad project at Sabanci Uni, where I have just completed my MA in Visual Arts. The title of the project “Glimmers and Limbo”, is inspired largely by Gaston Bachelards fantastic book “The poetics of Reverie”. These photos are a documentation of the intersecting world of heterotopic street photography, and my own surreal reveries, as the outsider and observer. Heterotopia is a hard concept to explain but can mean a place that is neither utopic nor dystopic, but slightly unsettling, intense or uncanny. Istanbul is an amazingly heterotopic city in many ways. Similarly to how I worked as a painter – making many paintings as part of a larger Tetris-style assemblage - I view my many photos also as part of a larger whole. The process of street film photography – the lack of instantaeous gratification, is something I truly love, even if I digitally edit the photos later to play with the colour.

Tell us about one location in this city that holds a special meaning just for you.

 Well there are many, I can’t say just one!!  Certain backstreets around Zeyrek, Vefa, or the Gül Cami, or the quiet part of Ayvansaray up from Balat. The entire old city within the ancient walls is amazing to me – the cay houses under Valens Aquaduct are one of the best spots to sit and observe, and probably haven’t changed for decades . I have spent many a Sunday afternoon walking completely empty streets around there, stumbling upon the most curious scenes. Tarlabası as well, walking down Omer Hayyam to the Sunday pazar. So much nostalgia and a certain surrealness to it all. I love exploring this city , especially alone, and always find new and fascinating places despite the development and gentrification.

Can you tell us what you’ve got lined up next in life and in terms of your artistic career? What projects are you looking to get your sink your teeth into in the year ahead and how do you see your work developing further into the future?

I am hoping to do a photo installation exhibition alongside my “Glimmers and Limbo” grad project, as well as a book, and also to set up a studio at home. I am also looking into doing some 35mm street photography workshops, as everyone seems into “analog” these days but people don’t know exactly where to start. I feel like photography will always be there for me but I am always looking to expand my interests. I have recently become super into Typography and zine making, so maybe more artist books. I would like to write more creatively again as that sort of took a backseat to photography and paper-writing as I was doing my Masters. Besides that I am just planning to work again as an English teacher and tutor. I think the compulsion to create takes many forms, and as cliche as it sounds, sometimes just the way you live your life can be art in itself.

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Julia Totino is an photographer, writer, educator, urban explorer and general daydreamer. She currently lives in Istanbul. More on her can be found at https://vimeo.com/juliatotino/about and she can be contacted through Instagram @the_hobohemian.