Jennifer Hattam

No white walls surround the art at Istanbul's newest sculpture gallery. Instead, skyscrapers and tower blocks rise dramatically above its works of stone and steel, set atop the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art in the city's Maslak business district. Meanwhile, at Borusan Contemporary , weekend visitors stroll through the empty offices of one of Turkey’s biggest holding companies -- tidied up every Friday night so no paperclip is out of place -- to view selections from the firm's 600-piece art collection. This is the latest trend to hit Istanbul: the office block as art gallery. Large private companies, especially banks, have been patrons of the arts in Turkey for decades, but as the country's economy booms, the line between the art and business worlds is becoming ever harder to distinguish... Read the rest of my article "From the water cooler to the water colour" in the October 2012 issue of Gulf Life , the in-flight magazine of Gulf Air: jpg | pdf ...

Beating drums and blowing whistles, hundreds of women marched last month on Istanbul's central Taksim Square, in one of dozens of rallies that have been held around the country to protest a new threat to reproductive rights.   Abortion until the 10th week of pregnancy has been legal in Turkey since 1983, and little contested until Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan railed against the practice in May, calling it akin to "murder" ... Unlike in the United States, abortion hasn't generally been much of a political issue in Turkey, so the prime minister's recent statements came as a shock, bringing women and their supporters out into the streets to protest and generating news coverage around the world. Reporting my latest piece for Women's eNews, I spoke with experts about how this renewed debate affects the general climate for women in Turkey, and how further restrictions on abortion could impact efforts to some of the country's most pressing domestic ...

In the shadow of the Acropolis, they set off before dawn. Men and boys driving rusty trucks, pushing heavy hand-carts, towing wagons behind battered motorcycles. As the city slowly comes to life, they are already well into their day's work, scouring alleys and Dumpsters for old box-spring mattresses, appliances, car parts, anything they can salvage and sell at a scrap yard for a few dollars a day.  Many Athens residents have been struggling to get by since economic and political crisis erupted in Greece, threatening to engulf much of Europe. But the estimated 80,000 Athenians who collect and process scrap in the city's informal economy were eking out their meager livings back when the rest of the city was still living large. .. Back in April, I had the opportunity to watch the new documentary "Raw Material" and interview its director, Christos Karakepelis, as part of the 31st Istanbul Film Festival , which hosted a special series of screenings and talks related...

A post I wrote for TreeHugger this spring about a Kenyan boy's creative method of keeping lions away from his family's farm attracted the attention of an editor from BBC Wildlife magazine, who commissioned me to look into the topic further. I consulted with experts on the viability of the young inventor's idea and learned many more interesting things about human-wildlife conflict in Africa than I could fit into the final piece, a short article for the "Agenda" section of the magazine's July 2012 issue . Read my article for BBC Wildlife, "Lions in the light": jpg | pdf

"You must have the best job in the world!" the couple at the next table gushed, having just learned that I was staying at their Assos hotel while updating part of the Fodor's Turkey guidebook. While there are certainly some jealousy-inducing perks to guidebook work -- like getting the VIP treatment at that lovely establishment (including a divine breakfast featuring fresh-baked bread, local cheeses and olives, spicy pepper dip, and homemade pistachio and chili jams) -- most of what's involved is far less glamorous than fellow travelers might think. My days on the North Aegean (one of my favorite parts of Turkey) last summer were largely spent getting up early, guzzling copious amounts of Nescafe , and then racing from one hotel, restaurant, or historic site to the next, checking opening hours, prices, menus, room features, and other nitty-gritty details, then collapsing in a sweaty mess (it was August, after all) on a bus that would take me to the next desti...

The latest issue of SHOP Istanbul 's Style Edition features two pieces I wrote, a cover story about Turkish and international brands making inroads into the city's venerable Grand Bazaar , and a news piece about Hiç Crafts , an appealingly eclectic design store in the up-and-coming Tophane neighborhood. While the quarterly magazine, published by tourism company Global Blue, focuses on new shopping opportunities for visitors to the city, I took the chance while working on the bazaar story to poke into some of the famous covered market's hidden corners and learn how shopkeepers really feel about their new neighbors -- and about other changes in store for this historic location. That story will ( inşallah! ) appear in a major travel magazine this coming fall. Read my articles for SHOP Istanbul in the digital edition of the Spring/Summer 2012 issue: " Market Leader " begins on page 42 and " Eclectic Design Oasis " appears on page 40.

Sosin and her family moved from rural Turkey to Istanbul, the country's largest city, and for four years she did not leave the house, not even to buy food for her children. "I was afraid to be lost. I never saw any place outside the house. We would be starving with the children until evening when my husband would come home," she told researchers... The plight of poor women who have moved to Istanbul from rural Anatolia was among the many sad, fascinating, and empowering stories I encountered while covering the recent 12th Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) International Forum in Istanbul. After attending an activist-led talk on "The impact on women's rights of economic underdevelopment and forced migration in the Kurdish region of Turkey," I delved into the topic of Turkey's female migrants, publishing a piece for Women's eNews that was also picked up by United Press International (UPI) and the Thomson Reuters Foundati...