“Art is the front lines of resistance,” said Turkish psychpop musician Gaye Su Akyol onstage at Istanbul’s exuberant annual cultural gathering IST.FESTIVAL. “Being an artist is my way of surviving in this surreal world. Because you can do anything; you are as free as a ghost.”

There might be no better city – a centuries-old melting pot that has seen four empires rise and fall – to grapple with the question posed by this year’s festival: “What ishellip;

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