The Ancient World Comes to Life in an Animation Featuring Istanbul’s Islamic, Ottoman, Greek & Byzantine Art

Trav­el for travel’s sake can be won­der­ful but noth­ing beats trav­el­ing with a pur­pose.

Syr­i­an Ger­man film­mak­er Waref Abu Quba was so tak­en with Istanbul’s time­less beau­ty on his first vis­it in 2021 that he resolved to pho­to­graph as many exam­ples of it as pos­si­ble.

Hav­ing amassed some 2,900 pho­tos, he set about ani­mat­ing them using a flash cut tech­nique, rapid­ly tog­gling between sim­i­lar images to bring life and move­ment to fixed archi­tec­tur­al and dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments.

(Warn­ing: the result­ing con­tent could trig­ger seizures in view­ers with epilep­sy or pho­to­sen­si­tiv­i­ty.)

Takrar –  Ara­bic for ‘rep­e­ti­tion’ — took two years to com­plete, con­dens­ing the sense of won­der Quba expe­ri­enced on his trav­els into four aston­ish­ing min­utes.

His col­lab­o­ra­tion with com­pos­er Alex Sto­ry and per­cus­sion­ist Robbe Kieck­ens brings added vital­i­ty to these ancient pat­terns on stone, wood, ceram­ic, and tile.

Among the forms Quba infus­es with life are 140 unique columns from Hagia Sophia, each carved with the emper­or’s mono­gram and their land of orig­in’s cap­i­tal.

The domed ceil­ings of Istanbul’s mag­nif­i­cent mosques achieve a kalei­do­scop­ic effect.

The three insti­tu­tions that com­prise the Istan­bul Archae­o­log­i­cal Muse­ums proved a rich source of mate­r­i­al, from Assyr­i­an sculp­tures and mosaics from Mesopotamia, to orna­ments dec­o­rat­ing the 4th cen­tu­ry BCE Alexan­der Sar­coph­a­gus, to the Hel­lenis­tic Sar­coph­a­gus of Cry­ing Women, whose tit­u­lar mourn­ers now shim­my in a rit­u­al­is­tic dance.

Even door­knobs man­age to cap­ti­vate, while a cobalt blue Iznik charg­er plate from the Muse­um Of Turk­ish and Islam­ic Arts pos­sess­es true star qual­i­ty.

Watch more of Waref Abu Quba’s films here.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Istan­bul Cap­tured in Beau­ti­ful Col­or Images from 1890: The Hagia Sophia, Top­ka­ki Palace’s Impe­r­i­al Gate & More

An Intro­duc­tion to Hagia Sophia: After 85 Years as a Muse­um, It’s Set to Become a Mosque Again

Hear the Sound of the Hagia Sophia Recre­at­ed in Authen­tic Byzan­tine Chant

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.