Conversations with Emrah Safa Gürkan: From Casa Garibaldi to the Art of Cultural Mediation

The conversation with Emrah Safa Gürkan began in the rooms of Casa Garibaldi, the seat of the Società Operaia Italiana di Mutuo Soccorso, the Italian workers’ mutual-aid society, in Beyoğlu, which keep the building’s history as though not a day had passed. From the rich past of the house and the society it reached towards the depths of guiding, a profession that is a kind of cultural ambassadorship.

We began with a few questions from history. What social need produced this community, founded in the heart of Pera by Italian workers? And how, alongside the silent language of the archival records, do the remarkable archaeological finds beneath the building’s foundations, a Roman necropolis, put the missing pieces of Beyoğlu back in place?

When the talk turned to guiding, our focus widened. What equipment, what training does it take to convey a country’s spirit, its history and its fabric to a visitor? Where does knowing a foreign language stand in this profession? Why do tours of Istanbul, in so vast an imperial capital, so often remain confined to a few main routes? From the gaps in school textbooks to museums, from the silent ancient cities of Anatolia to Sicily, we discussed in detail the secrets and the difficulties of conveying a culture. We also brought the recent changes to the law on tourist guiding, and the debates around them, into the conversation, mixed with our own experience in the field.