AGENCY AND REPRESENTATION

Expositions were potent sites of information about the contemporaneous state of technology, art, architecture and culture at an international scale. In the nineteenth century, in Western perception the world was composed of two parts: the Orient and the Occident. The world expositions of the nineteenth century, however, cannot be evaluated based merely on the representation of Eastern countries by the Western World. Western historiographers of architecture criticize other architectures from an Orientalist perspective where the uniqueness and dominance of the West were emphasized. This book focuses on Ottoman participation in these exhibitions. The main argument is that the Ottoman representation cannot be evaluated under the category of colonial countries on the one hand and Western perceptions of Ottoman society at the time being on the other. Analyzing the active agency of the Ottoman presence in the World Exhibitions, the present study challenges the passive role that is usually attributed by contemporary historiography to the representation of non-Western cultures.

Autorentext

Born in Turkey,1980. Received B. Arch degree at Bal kesir University, 2002. Prepared the thesis on Gendered Product Design in Industrial Design Master Programme at IYTE,2006. Received Master s Degree in Design Studies at IEU and completed the thesis with Prof. Dr. Gülsüm Baydar, 2009. Working as a research assistant at Izmir University of Economics