Derya Özkan who is originally an architect has been teaching since 2008 in Munich University’s Anthropology Department as well as doing research in the urban anthropology field. Özkan focused on the following questions within the context of the project “Images of a Changing Istanbul”: in what ways is the image of Istanbul as a “cool” European city different or similar to the image of Istanbul as a third world city in the Orient? How does “cool Istanbul” look when looked at from Gülsuyu-Gülensu?
The ÖDP director in Gülsuyu-Gülensu and Yücel Demir who served as the district president in the last period talked about the role that daily spatial practices play on producing urban space and discussed the possibilities of transforming urban space within Gülsuyu and Gülensu.