Jehsong Baak

My first and only artist residency, in wonderful Istanbul at the end of 2019.

Still jet-lagged and exhausted from a disappointing trip to Hawaii, I wasn’t too keen on starting the residency as I should have been. But bit by bit, the beauty and the warmth of the Turkish people, the ubiquitous cool cats and dogs taken such good care of by everyone, and the gorgeous seagulls always working hard to nab a piece of bread from the ferry riders crossing the Bosphorus snapped me out of my funk.

This is what I wrote about one of the pictures taken during the residency for the book that came out in 2020.

“…Slowly riding my bicycle around the Princes Island, I came upon a pack of dogs. Many dogs. I counted 3 adults and maybe a dozen puppies. I wondered what they ate, where they slept, how do they stay warm at night (I imagined that they all huddled together into one big furry ball). The way they frolicked about playing with each other, it looked like a scene out of a certain paradise. They seemed so carefree and relaxed, not a worry in the world. If I have to come back as a dog in my next lifetime, I want to be a dog on Princes Island.”