Bringing together the images for the exhibition, I keep seeing these bright plastic plates and thinking of Gulen in Istanbul. On my last morning there, I had been filming in the morning by Galata Bridge and the fishmongers. It had been snowing that morning, I waited for her a few minutes early, watching a cat and seagull walk over the tarpaulin roofs of the fish stands side by side.
She arrived, and asked if I had eaten. I said yes, but I would happily eat again, and so we walked past the fishmongers and past the stand at the end with the blue buckets spinning and round to another restaurant, the closest to the water, and through a small garden into an area covered with plastic sheeting and a greeting by her friend. We sat down at a far table, and a metal basin on small legs full of hot coals was placed underneath the table next to our feet, for the first few minutes too hot for our legs to stay next to. Soon a ring of cats surrounded our feet, lying with their heads towards the heat, and one on my knee too, asleep and unmovable. First, a bottle of raki, a bottle of water and an orange bowl of ice cubes, because today we are eating fish and talking, and then a yellow plate each, with fried sprats and salad, and another clear plastic bowl of carrots and beetroot and lemon. We talked for several hours, with the hot cats and water beside us, about getting lost in the jungle, earthquakes and dancing, our families, and the same place we were sitting and how it would be in the summertime. We left, I had to catch the plane, and I walked up to the top of the hill to get the metro, and realised I was still carrying Gulen’s yellow umbrella.
