The Land Walls of Constantinople, built by emperor Theodosius II at the beginning of the fifth century, are – with the Aurelian Walls of Rome ¬– the largest city walls preserved from antiquity. For centuries they protected the capital of the Byzantine – and later Ottoman – Empire from external attacks. Although they are the most impressive surviving work of late Roman military architecture, these extraordinary walls are rarely visited by tourist crowds in modern Istanbul.
Domenico Ventura has walked the walls from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara with his camera several times since 2009, always carrying with him the chronicles of the conquest of the city in 1453, as well as the travel reports by Edmondo de Amicis from 1874. This exhibition aims to explore the walls in the context of a city that is undergoing a rapid modernization process, while being visibly in touch with its past. The photographs also focus on the transitions between the urban space and rural areas: the ancient gardens cultivated by the “inhabitants of the walls” are still preserved as one of the oldest historical cultivated landscapes in the Mediterranean, but they are seriously endangered by modern urban planning. Mixing, reshaping and abandonment determine the selection of images with a strong documentary character. Are the walls an obstacle to change, or rather a symbol of the constantly changing relationship between the city and its people?