Exhibitions

Photographed in Istanbul, during the winter of 2025, this series lingers inside mosques established during the Ottoman Empire highlighting the relationship between stone, light and proportion. It pays attention to the everyday life of these interiors and moments between prayers, these quiet intervals where architecture and human presence briefly pause and align.

Sakinah (Arabic: سكينة (refers to the sense of calm, reassurance, peacefulness and tranquillity. A stillness understood to settle within the heart. The photographs do not attempt to describe this state directly. Instead, they approach it indirectly, allowing atmosphere, scale and light to carry meaning. Mood is favoured over narrative and quiet over activity.

The artist sees the mosque not only as a place of worship, but as a shared public interior. It is a space of refuge, gathering and continuity. At a time when mosques are often framed through anxiety or fear, this series offers another angle: in which faith is encountered as lived experience, spatial harmony and collective presence.

Seher Istar, daughter of Turkish migrant parents, grew up with a strong sense of responsibility to her faith, Islam, as well a strong desire to voice and show it to others. Like many, she struggled with identity and with faith, but ultimately, that sparked her artistic imagination. Her photographs are reminiscent. Each shot representing memories, rootedness and spirituality. Istar’s photography shows how a sacred space can also be a peaceful refuge, a place to reflect and to connect to the divine.