Founded by Nagihan Uzel in 2010, SODA calls itself a contemporary art and design space. The gallery’s mission is to focus on artists and designers who work with different materials and in different mediums, and to support the rising trend of contemporary art jewellery. Whereas ‘classic’ jewellery is made using precious stones and metals, contemporary art jewellery is made from a plethora of different, unusual materials.

SODA stages approximately six exhibitions per year and closes for the summer months. The gallery’s roster of artists is primarily made up of emerging European talent with a handful of Turkish names, some of whom practice in the discipline of contemporary art jewellery. These include the Estonian artist Tanel Veenre, the Swedish artist Hanna Hedman and the renowned Dutch designer Ted Noten.

There’s also the Barcelona-based American sculptor Frank Plant and the Korean sculptor Seo Young-Deok, who both use different materials in their sculptures and thus produce very interesting and creative work; as well as the Dutch artist Diederick Kraaijeveld who repurposes wood to make vintage and pop icons; the conceptual British artist Andrew Barton; the Turkish artist Aslı Özdemir, who mostly works in collage art; and the Swedish digital artist Henrik Isaksson Garnell.

ODA (translating to ‘room’), located next to the main exhibition area, is a space for artists to ‘push the limits of their creativity’. The large display window onto the street allows onlookers to peek inside at the unique jewellery or interesting large-scale installations.