Uncertain States Bernd Nicolai: "In Oriente Lux – Architekten-Exil in der Türkei 1933–45"

Political and social upheavals in Turkey have decisively changed the working conditions for artists, writers, scientists and journalists. In the special programme "You Want Kilims, But I Do Films – Art and Culture in Turkey", representatives from various cultural sectors will present their practice. The series begins on 14 Jan with a lecture by art historian Bernd Nicolai (University of Bern) on German exiles, who fled to Turkey as a country of refuge in 1933–45. It will put current cultural production and political developments into historical perspective.

Bernd Nicolai (born in 1957) is an art historian and, since 2005, professor of architectural history and monument preservation at the Institute for Art History at the University of Bern. After studying in Mainz, Göttingen and Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin), he also lectured and researched at the Technical University of Berlin, the ITU Istanbul, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Trier as well as at the Tongij University of Shanghai. His fields of research include the early and high Middle Ages, cultural and transfer processes of modernity since the Age of Enlightenment, exile research as well as developments of contemporary architecture in the age of globalization. He is currently a guest researcher at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (CA).

In the second part of this series, the composer and scientist Turgut Erçetin will present his work on 26 Feb.