Educational Institutions

University education has developed with the creation of the photography departments in private universities. These departments introduce a different and contemporary approach to photography and provide students with up to date technical materials. Among private universities, there are only two universities which have a curriculum dedicated to photography. Both Bahçeşehir University and Bilgi University in Istanbul have a department of photography and video. Public universities such as Mimar Sinan University, Marmara University, Yıldız Teknik University and Dokuz Eylül University (İzmir) are providing a much more theoretical and classical approach to students as their technical possibilities are limited. Students are required to develop themselves individually. A general concern by young photography students is the lack of mentoring.

Photography education has also been developing in the last years but remains insufficient. Schools often have limited access to new technologies and the curriculum of most of those schools is based on classical photography, and therefore fail to broaden students’ horizons. International workshops are occasionally organized by different Istanbul based international cultural offices in collaboration with universities, foundations or photographers. But those are usually offered in a limited time and for a limited number of participants. The number of collaborations with international foundations, organizations and museums is very scarce.