“Istanbul is a city where calmness suddenly meets chaos,” says Demet Muftuoglu of art platform Istanbul'74, founders of the IST. Festival that sees talks, performances and screenings unfold across the city like a cultural mosaic. “It is where East meets West. The calming view of the Bosphorus in contrast to the city’s vibrant streets is a sublime experience.” In its fourth year, IST. celebrates the rebellious soul of the 15-million strong Anatolian metropolis. The attendees of this year’s June event included vanguard designer Hussein Chalayan, model and philantropist Liya Kebede and artists JR, José Parlá and Robert Montgomery, alongside a Turkish assemblage with video artist Ali Kazma and graffiti pioneer Tunc “Turbo” Dindas. Fellow attendee, jeweller Waris Ahluwalia, was inspired by the city’s “delicate balance of tradition and change, of past and future”—a utopian mantra also shared by local design label Dice Kayek. “It is the coexistence of different cultures for centuries, with Hagia Sophia Museum its perfect embodiment,” say Dice Kayek’s Ece and Ayşe Eg. “Listening to club music and the muezzin's evening prayer while being out in Ortakoy is like a kind of remix.” Istanbul’s creative future is assured. Directly or indirectly, the resonances of last year's uprisings are still inspiring the city’s youth. From the 2014 Mamut Art Project supporting emerging talent to Kulah, an eccentric exhibition space in an old ice cream cone factory, young Turkish artists—once labeled passive and apolitical—are now taking control of their own alternative creative spaces. —Bugu Melis Caglayan

Bugu Melis Caglayan is the Editor in Chief of This Is Our Fauna.