Istanbul-based photographer Yusuf Sevinçli’s new series made in Cyprus, “REPUBLIC”, has met photography lovers in an exhibition of the same name at Art Rooms, Kyrenia’s (Girne) eye-catching contemporary art gallery! Shaped during the artist’s visits to the island between 2020 and 2025 and comprising some 70 photographs, the selection reveals the layers steeped in everyday life rather than describing the island directly. The “REPUBLIC” exhibition can be visited at Art Rooms until 14 April, every day except Sunday, from 13.30 to 20.30.
In some places, history is not told like a story; rather, it is carried like a shadow. Cyprus is often like this: daily life goes on, the light changes, the sea is always in the same place; it is also one of those special places where the sky can be seen at its most beautiful – and yet something never quite comes into focus.
Yusuf Sevinçli’s “REPUBLIC” series, presented to the public in the exhibition of the same name at Art Rooms, draws close to the language of precisely this ambiguity: it does not speak plainly, but circles around the things we leave unsaid. Sevinçli’s photographs do not so much “show” the island as reveal a familiar state of being that has seeped into it. Even in its best-known places, the island reappears through an insider’s gaze, creating a sense of internalised intimacy for Cypriots and long-time residents alike. The exhibition’s relationship with the viewer thus becomes less a matter of storytelling than a form of contact embedded in daily life, one that does not lean on nostalgia. In the artist’s own words, the work “flows on rather than making a statement.”
Rather than producing “evidence”, the artist’s photographic practice establishes a discipline of looking. Large-format analogue production sets the rhythm of the series. No longer a piece of information to be consumed in haste, the image becomes a space that asks us to pause, to look again and to think amid the details. In the “REPUBLIC” exhibition, directed by Oya Silbery, place comes to the fore as the “event” recedes. Replacing grand statements with small details such as traces, surfaces, light and waiting, the exhibition invites viewers not to reach firm conclusions but to settle into a calm, attentive way of looking within the photographs.
With an exhibition book being prepared for publication by ARUCAD Press for art lovers, the “REPUBLIC” exhibition welcomes visitors at Art Rooms from 26 February to 14 April 2026, every day except Sunday, from 13.30 to 20.30.
