Ships with hundreds of years of maritime stories and their traveling companion mariners are the focus of captain Faruk Üründül's "Far Seas" photo exhibition at the Rahmi M. Koç Museum. Visitors will get the chance to go on a journey through the unknown life of the mariners. With a collection of 14,000 objects, Rahmi M. Koç Museum is hosting the legends of transportation, industry and communication.
The exhibition, which consists of photographs taken by independent photographer and ocean captain Üründül on ships engaged in maritime trade and at the ports he visited, is on display until Nov. 11.
This includes scenes from bulk carriers between 2002 and 2008 and documents the intersecting routes of ocean mariners who work with six-month contracts for six days a week and eight to 10 hours a day. It documents their lives away from the shores, with waves hitting the prow and the ballast tanks day by day. There are photos from the Panama Canal, India, Thailand, the U.S., the Netherlands and Japan in the exhibition.
Üründül, who looks at what he sees through a different window, describes his work as akin to, "What you call man is a bay to the sea."
"The ships are almost as big as a football field with a width of 32 meters and a length of 200 meters. While it looks huge from land, this does not mean anything for storms in the north Pacific in the middle of winter. The responsibility of witnessing the unknown maritime life of mariners I witnessed and the gratitude to these people were added to my worries I followed as a photographer. Yet, neither this work nor any other can be enough to express my respect for the sea people and the people who love the sea," the artist said.
