Vefa to the Book Exhibition Welcomed 30 Thousand Visitors at Tophane-i Âmire
Opened in honor of Eksim Holding's 40th anniversary and bringing together rare works, the Vefa to the Book exhibition received great interest in a ten-day period, visited by approximately thirty thousand art lovers.
Organized within the scope of Eksim Holding's 40th anniversary and inaugurated by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Vefa to the Book: Bookbinding Art and Restoration Exhibition welcomed approximately 30,000 visitors in 10 days at the Tophane-i Âmire Culture and Art Center.
Visitor Record and Intense Interest in the Exhibition
Opening its doors with a ceremony hosted by Eksim Holding Chairman of the Board Ebubekir Tivnikli, the exhibition was flocked by art lovers. Throughout the ten-day event, the Tophane-i Âmire Culture and Art Center witnessed heavy visitor traffic, with approximately 5,000 people seizing the opportunity to examine the rare works closely on the closing day alone.
Restored Rare Works and Studies
Forty restored works selected from the studies carried out for 10 years at the Istanbul Research and Education Center under the Abdullah Tivnikli Foundation were exhibited. Through the works restored by bookbinder Muharrem Kalenci, the subtleties of bookbinding art, paper types, repair marks, and restoration processes were addressed in the context of preserving cultural heritage.
Traditional Art with Modern Installations
Curated by Furkan Türkyılmaz, the exhibition brought traditional bookbinding art together with modern installation elements. In the area entered through book leaves, the world's largest headband (şiraze) woven in five days in the middle of the space and workshop sounds recorded with the ASMR technique drew great interest from visitors.
Works Leaving a Mark on Cultural Memory
The selection dedicated to Eksim Holding's 40th year featured Muhyiddin Ibn al-Arabi's nearly 500-year-old manuscript Fusus al-Hikam, Şeyh Galib's Divan, Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı's Marifetnâme, one of the first Arabic-scripted printings of Nutuk, and the first Ottoman-language copies of the Bible.
International Participants and Foreign Guests
Holding great importance in terms of cultural memory, the exhibition also drew the attention of experts and art lovers from abroad. Farid Al-Ali, Chairman of the Kuwait Center for Islamic Arts, and Dr. Moya Carey, one of the curators of the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, visited the exhibition and conducted examinations.
Permanent Resource in the Digital Environment
Although its physical duration at Tophane-i Âmire has ended, the contents of the exhibition will remain accessible via kitabavefa.com. Visitors will be able to access detailed information about the works, the publication in a page-turnable digital book format, and the 360-degree virtual exhibition tour to be opened soon through digital channels.