Jeff Léal: "In Istanbul, I have the impression that everything is possible"<

Jean-François Léal (Jeff) is director and photographer.After having traveled and inhabited in many countries, he currently exhibits ‘vegetable fantasy’ in the garden of the French Institute of Turkey antenna of Istanbul.Meeting this atypical Parisian backpacker who tells us about his unconditional love for Istanbul, a city he dreams of living.

Albane Akyüz for Lepetitjournal.Com Istanbul/Turkey: How did you "meet" Istanbul?What were your first emotions?

Jeff Léal: In 1985, at 25, I left Europe for the first time in my life.Arrived at Izmir airport in the middle of August, I lost all my bearings barely landed.I fled the city, which I had not even visited, to take refuge in a megalopolis, where I would be more at my ease, I came from Paris.What did I know, from Turkey or Istanbul?Absolutely nothing.I had just seen the film Topkapi, by Jules Dassin, whom I loved, where we saw the roofs of Istanbul, that's all.

I was totally virgin of everything a priori.

A surge of odors, colors, unknown shapes, immediately invaded me.The kindness, the tenacity, the honesty and the curiosity of its inhabitants amazed me.But above all this irresistible ability to build, to undertake, and to meet all the challenges.

These few days in Istanbul of the 1st trip gave me enough confidence in me and Turkey to cross it and travel to its borders with the U.R.S.S and Iran.It was great.

What is your relationship to this city today?

What relationship can we have with a city?A city where we do not live, a city that we rediscover almost each of its changes, and over the years, according to its travels, and the time that we spend exploring it, totry to appropriate the soul.I would say an almost in love relationship.

We are surprised, seduced, saddened, amazed.In search of synchronicity, we discover the faults, the errors, and then we learn to love it, to simply accept it.I would finally say that when I arrive in this city, I have the impression that I changed planet, and that everything is possible there.

Could you introduce us to your 'vegetable fantasy' exhibition?

I introduced my mother to drawing and painting the last years of her life.After his death in 2018, I felt the need to pay tribute to him, through artistic work on the living.

It was in urban wandering, that I finally accessed peace, photographing the few rare plants in cities.After showing my photos, I immediately realized that people saw it only as a framing and a light, not the living.So I decided to transform their vision, through another chromatic dimension.

For this, I used today's digital tools, without going into the ease of filters, nor photoshop, but having a total control over the colors like an impressionist painter.

‘Vegetable fantasy’ is a job that stems from the need to restore their place to plants, what message do you want to convey by exposing your work in a megalopolis like Istanbul?

In societies that dehumanize us more every day, the return to nature and health and natural environments is more and more necessary.Look, what is it related to nature, living, in a big city?Dogs, cats (especially in Istanbul), and some birds when you are lucky to be able to cohabit with them.And trees, in rare parks, when they were not replaced by shopping centers or buildings.All the cities of the world are polluted to the extreme and only plants can give us what we lack the most, a healthy air, shadow when it is hot, of the lifetime, color flowers when we suffer fromgreyness and concrete.Spaces of visual rest and mental peace.And above all a return to archaic and deep connection to a natural environment.Reflanting nature at the very heart of cities can only promote health, cities as well as their inhabitants.Whether it is shrubs, trees, or even pots in pots, no matter as long as we find this daily connection to nature.All this good that istanbul will do to the nature of its city, nature will give it back to the hundredfold.

With your director and photographer's gaze, what is Istanbul inspires in you?

A whimsical place, a space as a mobile decor, between past and future, between luxury and poverty, between standards and before guard, between dreams and reality.Istanbul, a diamond with multiple facets that could be cut, retail and polish constantly.Residents who let themselves be photographed, and who appreciate the photographers, without falling into paranoids of image law (laughs), which today prevent instantaneous.Due to its unique points of view, its architecture, its diversity of faces, its bridges on the bosphorus, its mosques, its synagogues and its churches, Istanbul is a dream dream studio for filmmakers and photographers from all over the world.

Do you have other artistic projects related to Istanbul or more generally with Turkey?

Yes, I would like to associate a troop of choreographers dancers to meet between past and future, in traditional costumes and emblematic places of contemporary and futuristic architecture today, telescoping with the past, with clothes and accessories toThe latest fashion and futuristic, in high places in the history of Istanbul.

Also an ephemeral installation project, several thousand meters of red carpet in the alleys of the gecekondu, where the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia stambouliote would meet this population of economic survivors.

Other sound and musical projects also, with muezzins calling for prayer, on the water of the Bosphorus, like the Water Music of Handel in 1717.

It is not the ideas that are missing in these places conducive to the imagination.

I just hope to find fruitful collaborations with sponsors wishing to associate with projects, where Istanbul and Turkey will regain international visibility.

> L’exposition ‘Fantaisie végétale’ est visible jusqu’au 21 décembre dans les jardins de l’Institut français de Turquie, antenne d’Istanbul.The exhibition is also part of the festival "La route cultural de Beyoglu", which continues until November 14.

> Visitez le site internet de Jeff Léal en cliquant ICI