Salt Galata exhibition explores changing nature of work

ISTANBUL

The exhibition brings together works by seven artists, examining labor through different perspectives.

Salt Galata is hosting “No Admittance Except on Business,” an exhibition exploring the changing nature of production, the transformation of workplaces and the experiences of workers from the industrial era to the present day.

Running from Oct. 17, 2026, to Feb. 14, 2027, the exhibition brings together works by seven artists, examining labor through different perspectives, including workers’ bodies, urban spaces, automation and global production networks.

Salt presents the exhibition as a multilayered account of workplaces that often remain hidden from public view. It traces how factories, once prominent symbols of industrial capitalism in city centers, gradually moved to urban outskirts and Organized Industrial Zones after 1980, as production became increasingly organized on a global scale.

The exhibition also highlights how production extends beyond factory walls, shaping everyday life, the environment and digital spaces.

Among the featured works, Merve Bedir explores the relationship between humans, machines and space, focusing on the optimization and automation of labor. Kamil Dalkır and Sibel Karadağ examine Istanbul’s recycling facilities within the global waste economy, drawing attention to the physical toll on workers processing waste imported from Europe.

Belit sağ focuses on the privatization and liquidation of the Sümerbank Bakırköy Cloth Factory, linking the perception of public factories as a financial burden on the state to the impact of harsh working conditions on employees.

Dilşad Aladağ examines the transformation of the Simyonoğlu Factory, first into the National Factory and later into a museum, through official archives, social narratives and personal memories. Metehan Özcan, meanwhile, brings together found materials such as job advertisements and factory yearbooks to explore the relationship between industrial production, social reproduction and modernist work and residential spaces.

The exhibition also looks at factories as places of solidarity and resistance, rather than solely as sites of discipline and control. Sultan Gökdemir documents the workers’ protests that swept across Türkiye in 1989, while Tamar Levit and Yaen S. Levi, in collaboration with Neval Tarım and the Çalışan Eller (Toiling Hands) choir, address the struggle for the rights of textile workers producing goods for global supply chains.

A parallel presentation titled “Out of the Archive: Industrial Architecture in Türkiye” will open on the building’s third floor on Oct. 20. Prepared by Salt’s Orkun Dayıoğlu, it brings together material from Salt Research archives, focusing on factories designed by architects active in 20th-century Türkiye, including Vasil Vingas, Doğan Tekeli, Sami Sisa, Aydın Boysan, Cengiz Bektaş and Şevki Pekin.

The selection offers insights into the country’s architectural and engineering history, as well as the social dynamics and working culture of the period.