Alptekin was an artist that saw the profound effects of global capitalism on the everyday, observing the movement of people and products across geographies, particularly in the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The artist's solo exhibitions are “Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin – Facts, Incidents, Accidents, Circumstances, Situations”, Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź (2013), “Festival Istambul Agora – Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin,” SESC Pompeia, São Paulo (2013), “I Am Not A Studio Artist”,[1] Salt, İstanbul (2011), “Global Mockery,” Maison de Folie de Wazemmes, Lille (2009) and “Kriz: Viva Vaia,” Dulcinea Gallery, İstanbul (1999).
In spring 2013, the Istanbul-based platform InEnArt launched in cooperation with Salt Research the online version of Sea Elephant Travel Agency in memory of Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin.
Inspired by Jules Verne's novel Kéraban-le-Têtu, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin initiated the Sea Elephant Travel Agency with a group of fellow artists and art professionals.
Following the travels of Jules Verne's stubborn tobacco merchant Kéraban around the coast of the Black Sea, Alptekin intended to gather artists, curators, musicians, architects, historians and scientists to board a boat leaving from Istanbul, following the route of Kéraban and anchoring back in Istanbul again after making a full circle around the Black Sea, stopping at ports of Varna, Constanta, Odessa, Sevastopol, Yalta, Rostov, Novossibirsk, Sochi, Batumi, Trabzon and Sinop.