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Istanbul Modern, a contemporary art museum in Türkiye's largest city, is preparing to host an international art project supported by Italy's Ministry of Culture, the museum announced.
The project, developed under the Italian Council program in collaboration with The Blank Contemporary Art and MAC-Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Lissone, will center on a new work by Italian artist Ismaele Nones.
Titled "Cartography of a Restless Sea. Textile Allegories and Global Currents," the work will debut at Istanbul Modern in fall 2027.
Celenk Bafra, artistic director of Istanbul Modern, and Stefano Raimondi, director of MAC-Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Lissone, curate the project.
It focuses on the relationship between Nones' practice and the visual culture of the Mediterranean and the Near East.
As part of the project, Nones will produce a large-scale installation addressing ecological crises and the concept of belonging.
A public program accompanying the exhibition will examine carpet motifs found in Türkiye and Italy, the symbolic meanings of water, the relationship between visual tradition and contemporary production, and the interaction between cultural identities and ecological systems.
Beyond the exhibition itself, the public program aims to establish a platform for cultural exchange, research and international collaboration, according to the museum.
The installation will be made using recycled fishing nets. This month, Nones will carry out a research trip focused on Istanbul's urban, water and textile culture, drawing inspiration from the harbor area where Istanbul Modern is located, the Bosphorus and the city itself.
The resulting work will be a modular textile installation of 49 pieces, woven from yarns made from recycled abandoned fishing nets.
Through the piece, Nones brings together craft, cultural memory and environmental themes, reinterpreting the visual culture and textile traditions of the Mediterranean and the Near East in a contemporary form.
Following its debut at Istanbul Modern, the work will travel to MAC-Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Lissone in 2028, where it will join the museum's permanent collection.
The project supports the Italian Council program's broader goal of funding new artistic production and expanding Italy's public cultural heritage with contemporary works, the museum said.
Nones lives and works in Turin, in northern Italy. He grew up in his father's icon-painting workshop, where he was introduced early to Byzantine iconography and symbolic forms of representation.
He studied painting at the Alessandro Vittoria Art Institute in Trento and sculpture at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts.
Working across painting, sculpture, mosaic and textile, Nones connects historical forms of representation with current political, social and ecological issues.
His interdisciplinary practice combines traditional crafts, symbols of faith, and material transformation, bringing together different cultural and historical layers within a contemporary art framework.
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