At our 527th Art Meeting, we are visiting the Garden of the Former French Orphanage as part of the 18th Istanbul Biennial.

In 1869, Sultan Abdülaziz allocated this land, which housed a four-story mansion, to the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, on the condition that it be used as an orphanage. The Saint-Joseph French Orphanage opened its doors that same year, along with the adjacent Saint Eugène Primary School. Both institutions remained in operation until 1937. Due to the building's deteriorating condition and legal proceedings regarding its ownership, the building has been unused for some time. The surrounding garden, once known for its orchard, wells, terraces, and flowing water sources, now serves as a public social facility opened to the public by the Beyoğlu Municipality under the name "Tophane Mekan."

Khalil Rabah (b. 1961, Jerusalem) is an artist, curator, and educator who lives and works in Ramallah. Rabah is the founder and artistic director of the ongoing Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind project. In his multidisciplinary conceptual practice, the artist explores displacement, memory, and identity through architectural, ecological, and speculative institutional structures. His solo exhibitions include Through the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind, Fondazione Merz, Turin (2024); What is not, Sharjah Art Association (2022); Relocation, Among Other Things, Salzburger Kunstverein (2022). His group exhibitions include Desert X AlUla (2022), the 2nd Lahore Biennale (2020), and Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018). Rabah's garden piece, Red Rotavesait (2025), is a conceptual device and spatial intervention that opens and disrupts different paths of labor, movement, and belonging. The installation is an extension of Khalil Rabah's career-long interest in land struggles, deportation, and the questioning of dominant historical narratives. Nestled in a secluded corner of the public garden of the Former French Orphanage, the work invites biennial visitors to wander—and encounter obstacles—within a structure of barriers, thresholds, and contradictory signs. The structural features shaping the installation simultaneously reflect the orphanage's history as a refuge and a space of domination.

https://bienal.iksv.org/tr/18b-sanatcilar/khalil-rabah

Wednesday, October 8

12:00-1:00 PM

Address: Tomtom, Boğazkesen Caddesi 65c, Beyoğlu

https://maps.app.goo.gl/RAYKw2FCa1cPdtENA?g_st=ipc