We salute our student, artist, writer, and researcher Rana Kelleci (DAI, 2026) whose practice navigates the intersections of space, memory, and knowledge-making. Through an interdisciplinary approach, she explores cultural and historical narratives weaving together embodied experience. Wonderful to know that Rana has been selected for the Spring 2025 Research Fellowships offered by the Netherlands Institute in Turkey! NIT Fellowships are research stays that take place in Istanbul. They are given to selected candidates affiliated with Dutch universities, whose research has a connection with the mission of the institute, broadly defined as the study of the history, cultures, and societies of Turkey in the past or present.
Rana's research will explore the Tulip Period (1718–1730) in Ottoman history, focusing on its cultural, political, and spatial narratives, particularly through the lens of the now-vanished Sadabad Palace in Istanbul’s Kağıthane district. By examining historical maps spanning the 16th to 20th centuries, the study investigates how Kağıthane’s representation evolved, reflecting shifting urban and political dynamics. The research ultimately questions how history is recorded, remembered, and forgotten, linking these concerns to broader issues of identity, belonging, and historical imagination.
The Netherlands Institute in Turkey is a research center dedicated to the study of Turkey and surrounding regions through the ages. It conducts historical and archaeological research and aims to support studies in the humanities and social sciences that have a bearing on Turkey, by scholars as well as students, from the Netherlands and other countries.
https://www.nit-istanbul.org/fellowship/nit-fellowships-spring-2025