The Other Artist: Being an Artist in the East
Field studies: February, March, April 2022
Seminar programme: August 2022
VAN, HAKKARİ, ŞIRNAK
The Other Artist: Being an Artist in the East project’s general goal is to draw attention to the problems of artists and to create an agenda for their solution. The secondary goal of the project is to examine the problems experienced by artists in three cities in the east of Turkey under the theme of art sociology. Within the scope of the project, interviews with artists will be held in three cities, the output of these interviews will be turned into a publication and a seminar series will be organised. The project, which sets out to examine the problems experienced by artists coming from different linguistic, cultural and historical backgrounds or sexual orientation, plans to reveal the art market analysis of the region and the social phenomena of the art production process with a broad perspective. The Other Artist: Being an Artist in the East project aspires to support people's freedom of expression, identify the problems of individuals with a civil point of view, create an agenda for possible solution methods in collaboration with artists and figures from the field. The project aims to develop strategies that uniquely capture the spirit of the time towards the development of the connection of artistic production with social phenomena. The project also aims to improve the inter-institutional relations and the overall influence of institutions engaged in art and cultural activities in these cities and to organise artists under a common platform such as an initiative or a collective. The problems of art and artists in Turkey are often stuck in the big cities of the country. This situation can be explained by the fact that the cultural centres of the country are Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir and local art is mostly ignored. At the same time, the lack of infrastructure of the galleries, exhibitions and the general art market of these three cities which are the research area of the project, is another reason for this situation. The Other Artist: Being an Artist in the East project aims to reveal the specific reasons that create this outcome, while making the causes and the solutions of the problems of local artists more visible.