The Manifestation of a Dream
Have you ever tried to read a city not only from its streets, stones and soil, but from its imagination? Have you considered that a city might be the ancient language of numbers, the invisible energy of geometry, and the earthly drawing of humanity's desire to reach the Divine?
Luna Tülay Okan looks at Nicosia exactly like this. Not as a map, but with a manifested faith.
Describing Tülay Okan merely as “an art instructor” would undersell both her and the transformation she represents. She comes from the heart of a Fine Arts Faculty positioned at the intersection of art psychology, art philosophy, and art history — not from an institution that simply trains teachers.
While analyzing in her master's thesis how a straw object gains new meaning across four eras, four movements, and by four different painters, she actually defined the direction of her own art:
“Reality changes. Therefore meaning changes as well.”
That is why she is not only someone who looks at a painting but someone who reads it. She can see the psychology behind a form, the history within a color, and the philosophical vibration carried by a composition.
Between 2003 and 2020 Luna Tülay Okan held eight solo exhibitions… Each one opened a new door in her artistic journey:
Self
Flight
Repetitions of the Poppy
Belonging
The Present / At the Stop of Looking at the Sky
Butterfly Effect
Images of Spring
From Heavens to Roots: My Travelogue
With each exhibition, self, place, perspective toward the sky, roots, and the concept of belonging intertwined; the bond between art and the spirit steadily strengthened.
During this time her pedagogical path spanned from Tarsus American College to the English School of Kyrenia… A touch that guided hundreds of students in their first strong encounters with art.
Our annotation method is actually to find the question that gives you purpose in life — the question that gives you the eagerness each morning to get out of bed, get dressed, and do things. What gives you pleasure — cooking, doing makeup, conversing? When you find answers to all these and create a field of confidence for yourself, you form an area of trust, love, and peace for both yourself and those around you. From my many years of teaching and listening to people, I realized this: sometimes a person cannot discover for themselves what makes them happy. Sometimes a person doesn't know where or how to direct themselves. When you combine this with beautiful conversations and narratives and open the channel for that water to flow — even protecting it so it doesn't overflow — you can channel it more beautifully. It reaches where it should go more gracefully. I believe the greatest benefit I can give people is to enable them, as a guide within themselves, to receive art education.
But the greatest turning point in her transformation was her return to Nicosia — which she emphasizes as “ancestral lands”…
Reading the soul of a city often begins with seeing it anew. But when Tülay Okan looks at Nicosia, she does more than look:
She listens…
She hears geometry.
She hears the era of numbers.
She hears that a utopia has transcended time.
The Sforzinda ideal imagined by Antonio di Pietro Averlino (also known as Filarete), the Renaissance's “virtuous man,” finds new life in Nicosia's star plan.
This plan brings the divine order of the mandala together with Pythagoras's numerical mysticism on an urban scale.
A dream designed with eight force arrows…
The first implementation with nine signs…
And finally:
Nicosia with eleven signs.
In numerology, “11”:
“A rank that leads, guides, and guards ancient secrets.”
Just as today Nicosia is the heart of the island:
“Not the fate of a division; but the destiny of a city carrying two realities together.”
Here is Okan’s great excitement:
This is to tell the manifestation of this city.
“Master City Nicosia” is no longer just readings of architecture but a book of a mystical journey.
From Carl Jung’s reflections on the mandala to Pythagoras’s knowledge of the music of numbers, it brings the role geometry plays in spiritual alignment together with urban plans.
And while doing all of this, it calls the person back to their roots:
“The respect you feel for an animal’s or a tree’s right to live echoes in the heart of this city.”
Tülay Okan also makes sure to leave a note of gratitude at the center of her book: The educational rights provided by the Republic gave her not only a profession but the authority to read a world.
This book is the heartfelt thanks of an artist: To Atatürk and to all who enlightened their country with his thought.
A book left in the heart of a city quietly whispers:
“I am here.
The dream has come true.
The secret can now be read.”
A city, for those who know how to look, is never merely a city.
Nicosia:
A mandala…
A prayer…
A manifestation…
And finally, the space of an artist’s inner journey…
Now the only thing left for us is to pass through this dream…
And hear that call rising from the heart of the city:
“Welcome to the Master City.”
“The Manifestation of Filarete — Master City Nicosia” will be presented to readers after the protocol launch on November 11, at Işık Bookstore on November 22 at 15:00, and at Rüstem Bookstore on November 29 at 15:00, where a signing event will also take place.