KONSERVE*
Inter-City Guest Artist and Exchange Programme Network
January - November 2022
Artist residency programme: BURSA, ÇANAKKALE, IZMIR
Exhibitions: BURSA, IZMIR
IZMIR - Teos Arts and Culture Association
and affiliates
IZMIR - KARANTINA Collective, A Room of One's Own Arts Initiative, Nedircik Publications, Sarı Denizaltı Sanat İnisiyatifi, Open Studio
BURSA - Municipality of Nilufer (Directory of Arts and Social Services)
ÇANAKKALE - Çamtepe Ekolojik Yaşam Kültürü Merkezi, Saye Collective
DİYARBAKIR - Metal Collective, Amîdart Arts and Culture Group
MUĞLA - Carbon Collective, Caz Kedisi
While socio-cultural ruptures caused by globalisation and climate crisis reshape social life, centralisation caused by increasing urbanisation due to the decrease in rural population weakens the access of people who live in villages to culture and arts. Aiming to bring the methods determined during the research phase in 2021 to the field through its Turkish participants, KONSERVE invited ten artists to produce works inspired by intangible rural cultural heritage assets in the villages of Izmir, Çanakkale and Bursa, and aimed to establish a sustainable communication network by bringing together organisations working in this field. The works produced by the artists met with art lovers at the exhibitions opened in Bursa and İzmir at the end of the year, and online talks with the participation of academics working on the fields of "cultural heritage" and "art in the public sphere" allowed the sharing of methods and experiences between the participants and the beneficiaries.
KONSERVE sets out to build social cohesion grounds that will encourage people living in rural areas to collaborate with artists from various disciplines, working on social diversity, memory and cultural heritage, through creative participation. Emphasizing social diversity through works that are inspired by stories, tales, melodies, flavors, plays, motifs, rituals and ancient ecological practices hidden in rural areas; thus, the project, which aimed to reveal new local narratives against the centrist approach that standardises culture, set out to strengthen the understanding and communication between societies through the commons, while addressing the phenomenon of migration from the perspective of cultural heritage. Through the project, participants from different cities were encouraged to participate in the international network created by KONSERVE, in order to strengthen the culture of collaborative working, and to create opportunities that enable the participants to gain experience in and out of Turkey through the sustainable model created.
* KONSERVE is a shared word by the Turkish and Bulgarian languages meaning preserve (noun).
Artists
Barış B. Atal, Emre Evcimen, Özgür Demirci, Ezgi Yakın, Sarp Keskiner, Esra Okyay (İzmir)
Derya Gözükızıl (Mersin)
Halim Yazıcı (Muğla)
Mahmut Gültekin, Hediye Yaşar, Devrim Demir (Diyarbakır)
Seda Gökçe, İdil Acim, Umut Sevgül (İstanbul)
İnan Mayıs Aru (İzmir – Çanakkale)
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