The Golden Apple of Istanbul is a site-specific project unfolding through photography and a performative gesture. It explores how symbols travel through cities, histories, and bodies, and how meaning shifts when an object moves from being held to being released.
A real apple, coated in gold paint, appears across historical and everyday locations in Istanbul. Photographed against the textures of the city (streets, bridges, water, architecture), it becomes both an object and a mirror, reflecting ideas of power, desire, value, and transience.
Photographic exploration
The first stage consists of a series of photographs made across different parts of the city. The golden apple is carried, held, placed, and framed within Istanbul’s layered urban landscape. Neither staged nor theatrical, these images register quiet encounters between the object and the city, moments of pause, attention, and subtle displacement.
The apple functions here as a wandering symbol. Once associated with conquest, imperial ambition, and ultimate reward, it is reintroduced into everyday space as fragile, temporary, and exposed to weather, touch, and time.
Performative gesture
The photographic sequence culminates in a simple action. From the Galata Bridge, the golden apple is released into the Golden Horn.
This gesture transforms the apple from an image into an event. No longer possessed or displayed, it becomes an offering to the water, to the city, to history itself. Floating briefly among fishermen, boats, and passing gulls, the apple drifts without destination.
The act was carried out privately, without announcement, during a period of heightened artistic activity in the city, remaining outside any official framework. Passersby became incidental witnesses rather than an audience, encountering the action without explanation.
Conceptual context
Historically, Istanbul has been described as the “Golden Apple of the World”, a metaphor for power, desire, and the ultimate prize of empire. By releasing the apple into the Golden Horn, the project gently dismantles this image, shifting it from possession to passage, from monument to movement.
The golden apple ceases to function as a trophy. Instead, it becomes a message without an addressee, a symbol set free and allowed to drift, disappear, or transform.
Process and documentation
The project is documented through photography, preparatory images, and a series of photographs from the performative action. Video documentation will be added as an extension of the work. Together, these materials form a narrative that exists between image, gesture, and memory.
What remains is not the object itself, but the trace of its journey, a fleeting intervention connecting city and artist, myth and everyday life, holding and letting go.
Aranyalmás Book is an artist’s book conceived as a tactile object and a visual poem. It is assembled from crumpled paper, sewn with jute threads, and incorporates photographs of objects and actions from the project Golden Apples.
The book has no rigid binding or fixed form. Each page exists as an individual fragment that can be turned, revisited, and shifted. Through handling and viewing, the book gradually changes: it wears down, loosens, and retains traces of touch and time.
Turning the pages becomes part of the work itself. The sound of rustling paper, the resistance of the material, and the weight of the pages shape the experience of reading as a physical act rather than a purely visual one.
Aranyalmás Book engages with themes of memory, choice, and letting go. Golden apples appear here as images of attention and gift — something that can be found, held briefly, and then released.
Golden Apples: a visual poem in five episodes Created for the 5th International Symposium of Land Art, 2025 | Rácalmás, Hungary
About the project Aranyalmás Rácalmás (Golden Apple Rácalmás) is a site-specific visual poem exploring memory, dreams, and transience. The project’s name plays with Hungarian words: Rácalmás is a town whose name contains the word “apple,” and Aranyalmás adds the image of a “golden apple,” a rare fruit symbolizing the uniqueness and value of the place.
The series unfolds in five episodes, where golden apples guide the visitor through questions of presence, attention, and letting go. Each episode combines objects, gestures, participatory actions, and photography to create ephemeral narratives across the island and the bridge.
Prologue
On the island, among trees and grasses, the promise of paradise appears both evident and hidden. Every apple becomes a question, a memory, a dream, and a treasure. Some apples embark on a journey along the water, carried by currents of life and time; others remain, waiting to be discovered. This project is about transience, choice, and transformation, and how we preserve and reshape memories.
Episodes Overview
Episode 1. Almák-Álmok / Apples-Dreams Apples are the fruits of nature. Dreams are the hidden fruits of the soul. Golden apples are hidden on the island among roots and driftwood. To those who find them – joy.
Episode 2. Álomfogó – Almafogó / Dreamcatcher – Apple Catcher A special catcher gathers dreams and wishes. Visitors can tie pebbles, feathers, or knots to its threads, leaving traces of their own stories.
Episode 3. Fűggöny / Grass Curtain Grasses woven into a mat frame a golden apple at the center – the heart of the island. Visitors can photograph through the golden apple, capturing fleeting moments.
Episode 4. Különleges? / Something Special? Among a hundred crumpled paper balls, a golden apple shines in the sun. This object invites reflection on how we seek the special and how it transforms perception.
Episode 5. Híd álma – Hét alma / Dream of the Bridge – Seven Apples Seven golden apples are cast into the water from the bridge, drifting away like dreams released into the flow of life. Visitors witness the happening and the act of letting go.
Process
The project was created during August 12–19, 2025 in Rácalmás, Hungary, as part of the symposium dedicated to Sándor Márai’s The Herbalist and in homage to the work of Mária Bartuszová.
An artist book documents the visual poem and the process of the Golden Apples project.
Exhibited at
“Bridge” exhibition, 2025, Rácalmás, Hungary
“In the Footsteps of Time” exhibition, 2026, Várnegyed Galéria, Budapest, Hungary
Anatomy of Cities explores the city as a living organism. Through listening, color, memory, and movement, each project acts as a sensory instrument, tuning attention and inviting participants to notice what usually goes unseen.
The city becomes a field of subtle discoveries, where perception itself is the medium and every encounter opens a new layer of urban life.
If PanGorMonium tunes attention through inner listening, Shoot for Color tunes the eye and body through color, texture, and light. Together, these approaches explore different ways of experiencing the city.
The project consists of actions, photo marathons, and individual walks. It treats color not as decoration but as a way to pay attention to the city and inhabit it more fully.
It is a shared activity without competition. Participants create a personal experience of the city where perception itself becomes the medium.
Within Anatomy of Cities, Shoot for Color works as a visual and color-based instrument.
