In 2005, Gallery Apel organized an exhibition titled "Neighbour", as a parallel activity to the 9th International Istanbul Biennial. Same year in November, Anadolu Kültür offered the Diyarbakır Arts Center (DSM) for hosting the exhibition for the second time. "Neighbour" had to be adapted to the new environment with a few changes.

For example, in the first show, in the project called "The Rice Road", performance artist Engin Akın used Cezayir Restaurant as well as the gallery and the street where the gallery is situated, in order to realize an interactive project: From Tokyo to Havana, 27 regional rice dishes were offered to all the neighbours and guests of Apel. In the Diyarbakır version, the guests helped themselves to various rice dishes from the neighbouring cities. Twelve years later, Gallery Apel decided to organize another exhibition with the same theme in conjunction with the 15th Istanbul Biennial, which declared this year`s concept as "A Good Neighbour." Let`s remember the 2005 exhibition`s press release: Narratives about neighbors in love or at war with each other come up in various cultures in different formats. The concept of `neighbors` is the subject of many disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, history, law and even mathematics. Love thy neighbor as thyself; these words from the Torah remind us that this concept is also a moral value which is degenerating... The social interactions which have been changing in the name of progress inevitably affect how we, as individuals communicate. Today we live in a world where we can live in the same building for years without knowing our neighbors names. The friendly conversations which used to take place on our street or in our building are replaced by daily e-mails sent and received from around the world. These thoughts makes one ponder the future of words such as `neighborhood` or `neighbor`. The artists who will be participating in the exhibition Neighbour III with their unique visions are; İdil Akbostancı, Ali Aksakal, Yeşim Bayrak Avinal, Aydan Baktır, Esra Carus, Sakine Çil, Gürbüz Doğan Ekşioğlu, Can Göknil, Güler Güngör, Kurucu Koçanoğlu, Raziye Kubat, Suzy Hug Levy, Julie Mardin,Leyla Sakpınar, Nevzat Sayın, Elvan Serin, Rüçhan Şahinoğlu, Yıldız Şermet, Gamze Taşdan, Shirley Verette, Y. Bahadır Yıldız