Looking closely can change everything.
Between Feb. 5 and April 3, 2026, Galeri / Miz hosts “Yakın Takip; bir Duolog / Close Follow-Up; a Duologue,” curated by Gül Ilgaz, bringing together the works of Emel Başarık and Derya Ülker. But this is not simply an exhibition to “see.” It is an exhibition that gently insists you stay.
“Close follow-up” is a phrase we often use in daily life, especially in our fast, digital world. We follow, we track, we observe. Yet here, the term expands into something much more intimate: attentive tracing, staying in contact with a process, witnessing one another. It feels less like scrolling and more like breathing beside something as it unfolds.
The exhibition is framed as “a duologue” and I love this word. Not a monologue. Not even quite a dialogue in the conventional sense. A duologue suggests two presences that both speak and listen. Side by side, sometimes overlapping, sometimes interwoven. Like two voices creating a third tone. You begin to sense that what matters is not only what is said, but how one voice holds space for the other.
There is a subtle choreography between contrasts: holistic view and individual gaze, collective emotion and subjective feeling, distant seeing and close looking, anonymous squares and intimate neighborhoods, macro and micro. These oppositions do not clash; they lean into one another. It reminded me how often in life we think in binaries – either/or – when perhaps the truth is always both/and.
At the heart of the exhibition lies a tension we all quietly carry: belonging and independence. The desire to belong: to a family, a community, a place, even an idea. And at the same time, the desire to determine our own direction, to make choices free from external pressure. Absolute independence, however, can feel like drifting without anchor. Absolute belonging can feel like losing the outline of yourself. The exhibition suggests that these are not enemies, but forces in continuous conversation.
I found myself reflecting on how often we adjust our “distance of looking.” From far away, we see systems, crowds, movements. From close up, we see texture, breath, vulnerability. Neither is more truthful; they simply reveal different layers. Perhaps the real question is: when do we step back, and when do we lean in?
“Yakın Takip; bir Duolog” quietly invites us to reconsider that distance. It reminds us that being human means existing simultaneously as part of something larger and as a singular, irreplaceable presence. And maybe the art is not in choosing one over the other, but in learning to hold both with awareness.
Sometimes, the most radical act is simply to look closely.
Recently in London, I visited “Seurat and the Sea” at the Courtauld Gallery. Georges Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist painter who completely changed how we think about color and perception. He lived only 31 years, but in that short life he quietly built one of the most revolutionary painting techniques in modern art.
It’s actually the first major U.K. exhibition dedicated to Seurat in almost 30 years and instead of focusing on his most famous park scenes, it zooms in on something much quieter: the sea.
What I loved is that the exhibition doesn’t shout. It’s not dramatic. It gathers around 26 small paintings, oil sketches and drawings he made along the northern French coast – Honfleur, Le Crotoy, Gravelines – during five summers in the late 1880s.
And this is where it becomes interesting.
We all know Seurat as “the dot painter.” But when you stand in front of these seascapes, you realize the dots are not decorative. They are discipline. They are patience. From far away, the paintings feel calm, almost minimal. A horizon line. A boat. A soft sky. But step closer and the entire surface dissolves into tiny, deliberate points of color. Structure behind serenity.
The sea in his work isn’t wild or romantic like the Impressionists painted it. It feels measured. Balanced. Almost architectural. As if he is studying light scientifically, but somehow still making it poetic.
There’s something very modern about that.
You step back, it feels infinite.
You step closer, it feels constructed.
Distance completely changes the emotion.
And maybe that’s why this exhibition stayed with me. Because it’s not really about the sea. It’s about perception. About how we choose to look. About how proximity reveals truth.
In a city like London - loud, layered, constantly moving - standing in front of Seurat’s quiet horizons feels like a pause. A reminder that beauty can be engineered, that softness can be built from structure.
It made me think: sometimes what looks effortless is actually thousands of invisible decisions.
And that, somehow, felt very close to home.
In many ways, this resonates deeply with “Close Follow-Up; a Duologue.” Both exhibitions ask us to reconsider how we look. From a distance, we see unity. Up close, we see fragments. From afar, we see belonging. Up close, we sense individuality.
