Shop Me

Is there anything lighter than to be carried by others?

This large scale, walk-through shopping bag is an ephemeral site-specific installation realised in the opening of Bilstore at Bilsar Building, Beyoğlu and as part of the 'mash-up' exhibition. While housing an exhibition space and a coffee shop, Bilstore's largest branch offers a wide range of objects, under a variety of brands, each fits perfectly well in a specific lifestyle of modern individuals. Besides all clothing and home accessories, there are also carefully picked coffee table books on design, art and architecture, together with coffee cups and its table, music CDs, decorative toys, design objects, editions by some known artists and some other undistinguished objects, while motorcycle and its gears are also available. Being at the very end of Istiklal Street, this Bilstore's location is as unique as its contents. Although Istiklal Street is famous for its long and rich cultural history, now it is basically a shopping mall in the form of a street containing smaller shopping malls and shops for diverse pleasures.

Shop Me is a walk-through shopping bag made only with shopping bags collected from the stores on the facade of Istiklal Street. I simply walked along the street one day with a friend, from Taksim Square to Tünel Square, and asked for a paper bag from each of those stores occupying the street in both sides. I piled up these bags as a gateway. This large scale ephemeral installation is placed at the end of Istiklal and right behind the door that opens up to a more condensed, more peculiar, more refined way of shopping. After passing through this gate, a path fitted with objects for adolescent enjoyments of city dwellers reaches to the end of this walk with the 'mash-up' exhibition which evokes specific experiences and habituated behaviours related to everyday life as consumers.