In the heart of the city, inside the centuries-old Zeyrek Çinili Hamam, a new exhibition invites visitors to turn inward.
“Temenos: The Inland Sea,” the first solo exhibition in Istanbul by Santa Fe-based artist Margaret R. Thompson, opened on April 17 and will run through Aug. 30, 2026. Curated by Anlam de Coster, the exhibition marks the opening of the hamam’s 2026 contemporary art program.
Set within the bathhouse’s 16th-century structure and its underground Byzantine cistern, the exhibition unfolds as a sensory and introspective experience. Comprising paintings on canvas and silk, alongside sound and scent installations created specifically for the site, it draws visitors into a space shaped as much by atmosphere as by image.
The exhibition takes its name from the ancient Greek concept of “temenos,” a sacred, protected space set apart from everyday life, where a connection between the human and the divine becomes possible. In psychological terms, it also suggests an inner refuge, a place where one can safely encounter the unconscious.
Within this framework, the hamam itself becomes part of the narrative. Historically, bathhouses functioned as spaces removed from daily routines, where social hierarchies softened and collective rituals of cleansing allowed both body and mind to transform. Beneath it, the Byzantine cistern – once a vital structure sustaining the city – is reimagined by Thompson as an “inland sea.”
The descent into the cistern becomes central to the exhibition’s experience. Moving downward is not only physical but symbolic, suggesting a shift in attention from the external world to an inner depth. Rather than presenting a literal landscape, Thompson frames this “inner sea” as a system of circulation and transformation, where boundaries remain fluid and permeable.
Her works operate like perceptual fields. They encourage slowing down, sharpening the senses and forming a more attentive relationship with the surrounding space. Drawing on archetypal forms and natural imagery, the compositions often center around a vertical axis – resembling a spine, a passage or a channel. Recurrent motifs such as spirals, vortices and fountains evoke cycles of purification, rebirth and continuity.
Across the surfaces, winged mythological figures, birds, plants, shells and celestial forms emerge and recede. Inside the dark, humid environment of the cistern, these elements shift from being simply observed images to part of an enveloping atmosphere.
Materiality plays a key role in this transformation. Thompson incorporates natural elements gathered from different geographies, including water from the Bosporus, oils, spices, silk and pigments derived from earth. Some of these materials are also presented as part of a small archive within the exhibition. From lotus oil sourced in Istanbul to red ochre, volcanic rock and temple oils from New Mexico and even a snail fossil from Texas. These elements function almost like mirrors, reflecting viewers back toward their own “inner sea.”
In Thompson’s work, water is not merely depicted but becomes a mode of movement, carrying ideas of continuity and change. This is reinforced through the exhibition’s sensory layers. A custom scent, developed in collaboration with an Istanbul-based aromatherapy studio and a sound installation composed from recordings of healing springs around Santa Fe, expand the experience beyond the visual.
Both scent and sound operate as atmospheric thresholds. In ancient Greek rituals, scent was not simply decorative but fundamental in defining sacred space and making the presence of the divine perceptible. Here, it similarly shapes how the space is felt. Sound, though invisible, surrounds and alters spatial perception, connecting different geographies and cultures through the shared element of water.
Together, these components transform the exhibition into more than something to look at. It becomes a space to inhabit.
“Temenos: The Inland Sea” ultimately invites a quiet withdrawal from the pressures of daily life. Through its layered structure, architectural, sensory and symbolic, it offers the cistern as both a shelter and an inner landscape. What remains is not a fixed meaning, but a gradually unfolding sense of inward movement, where the viewer is left alone with their own depth.
