Istanbul is waking up with art!
Organised under the concept “Wake-up Call: Good Morning”, the 4th Istanbul Children and Youth Art Biennial will bring 450 visual art projects by children and young people to the people of Istanbul until Monday 23 May. With international participants also taking part, the Biennial offers a rich programme of panels, conferences, workshops, talks, music, dance and poetry readings.
The Istanbul Children and Youth Art Biennial, organised for the fourth time this year by Palet Culture, Art and Education Association (PALETDER), is held in institutional partnership with the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of National Education and Türkiye Eğitim Gönüllüleri Vakfı (TEGV), with the support of Beyoğlu Municipality, Beşiktaş Municipality, the Istanbul Bosphorus Municipalities Union and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Organised under the concept “Wake-up Call: Good Morning”, the Biennial will bring the artistic work of children and young people aged 4–18 to art lovers at a variety of Istanbul’s arts and culture venues, in its squares and on Şehir Hatları ferries. Admission to the exhibitions and other events will be free.
With participants from countries including Austria, the USA, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, the TRNC and Syria, this year’s Biennial has Hatay and Eskişehir as its guest provinces. This year, the performances and artistic work of children and young people will meet the people of Istanbul at Antrepo 1, the Mustafa Kemal Cultural Centre (MKM) Beşiktaş Çağdaş Art Gallery and Ortaköy Square. The other legs of the Children and Youth Art Biennial will take place in Lefkoşa, TRNC, from 5 to 30 June, and in Hatay from 24 October to 20 November.
Biennial exhibitions The Biennial exhibitions will be open to visitors for a month at Antrepo I and MKM Beşiktaş Çağdaş Art Gallery. A total of 450 visual art projects in painting, sculpture, ceramics, installation, new media and video, selected from 1,600 projects submitted from all districts of Istanbul and from Anatolia, will meet art lovers. The exhibitions will also include work carried out in 48 provinces of Anatolia in collaboration with TEGV, AÇEV and the Governorship of Hatay, and with Syrian children in collaboration with Türk Kızılayı. The exhibitions, the Biennial’s main event, will feature the work of 10,000 students.
With the support of more than 40 partner NGOs, artworks by disadvantaged children and young people – such as the children of seasonal agricultural workers, children in prisons and detention centres, and children with disabilities – will also be shown to the public. The Biennial also features work made with children by artists from Turkey, Germany, the USA, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Italy, the TRNC and Sweden.
Workshops, panels, conferences and talks The workshop and talks programme, which opened with Aret Vartanyan, continued with Bager Akbay’s maker talks. Hundreds of events with the participation of distinguished experts and artists await you, including environment- and transformation-themed work in Şişecam’s Glass from Glass Again Workshop; a book-writing workshop with Defne Ongun Müminoğlu; “Hands, Arms, Now Everything Is Sculpture” with Akbank Sanat; “Waking Up to Words – Waking Up with Words” with Nilay Yılmaz; the “Over to the Little Ones” workshop by Bilgi University’s Child Studies Unit (ÇOÇA); the “Teeth Tell Stories” workshop with İpana/Oral-B; the “Power of the Line” workshop with LAV Cam; and the “Creativity Workshop” with Edding.
This year’s programme for students and adults features nearly 200 theoretical and practical events with experts from Turkey and abroad, under main headings such as visual arts, art history, music, literature, dance, art education, educational methodologies and personal development. Events for adults aim in particular to inform teachers and parents in the field of pedagogy and to expand their educational repertoire, while events for children aim to bring them together with art through different methods and approaches. The sessions at Antrepo I and MKM Beşiktaş Çağdaş Art Gallery aim to reach 7,000 children.
In the workshop set up at Antrepo 1 under the sponsorship of Şişecam Cam Ambalaj, participants will follow the recycling journey of glass with the guidance of artists and art educators, and also take part in creative art activities through a colourful workshop programme with richly varied content.
In addition, the special library model “Room for Children”, supported by the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, will be part of the Biennial as a living children’s library, with workshops held throughout the Biennial. The second week of the Biennial programme is devoted to events on ‘children’s rights’ and ‘discrimination’. Supported by the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, “Children’s Rights Week”, held at MKM Beşiktaş Çağdaş from 2 to 9 May, includes artistic events aimed at raising awareness of these issues among both adults and children. Special art projects by children and young people will also be featured during the week.
Music, dance and poetry readings Around 1,500 students will take part in nearly 100 projects as part of these events. MKM Beşiktaş Çağdaş and Antrepo 1 will host music, dance and other acoustic stage performances that do not require a sound system, while chamber ensembles will perform acoustically. The repertoire covers Western art music, traditional art music, folk music from Turkey and other countries, and popular music. Children and young people will also share poems they have written or chosen with passengers on the ferries.
Music in the squares More than 1,000 children and young people will perform on stages equipped with sound systems, with the orchestras, choirs and pop-rock bands they have formed under the guidance of their teachers. On the open-air stage to be set up in Ortaköy Square and at the Afife Jale Stage, the people of Istanbul will hear music made by children and young people. The stage performances will also feature Turkish folk dances and dance choreographies set mainly to music from Latin American countries.
Film and video screenings Short films and videos made by students will be screened for audiences at Antrepo I and MKM Beşiktaş Çağdaş during the Biennial. Films produced in workshops by children and young people will also be shown.
Guided tours Guided tours will also be organised for visitors to the Biennial, in two formats: ‘pre-scheduled tours’ and ‘tours by reservation’. The tours will be organised by the Provincial Directorate of National Education for schools and students in disadvantaged areas of Istanbul, as well as for other schools and groups that make a reservation; students will be divided into groups of 20 and will visit the Biennial accompanied by volunteer guides. The tours will be run with the support of volunteers from NGOs working with young people and of university students. More than 900 guided tours will be held at Antrepo 1 and MKM Beşiktaş Çağdaş, the Biennial’s main venues, offering art guidance to 18,000 children and young people.
Institutional support The 4th Istanbul Children and Youth Art Biennial, held with local government support from Beyoğlu Municipality and Beşiktaş Municipality, has Beltaş A.Ş. as its venue sponsor. Special project sponsors include the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul and the Consulate General of the Netherlands. Şişecam Cam Ambalaj is the workshop sponsor. International supporters include the TRNC Ministry of Culture, the TRNC Youth Department, the Yunus Emre Institute TRNC, Room for Children/Sweden, Reggio Children (Italy) and Utca-Szak Kulturális Egyesület (Hungary).
The Biennial’s public supporters include the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Governorship of Istanbul, the Governorship of Hatay and the Hatay Provincial Directorate of National Education. Its institutional supporters include Anne Çocuk Eğitim Vakfı (AÇEV), Akbank Sanat, Istanbul Bilgi University, Kültür Kenti Vakfı, Istanbul Rotary, Türk Kızılayı, Doğu Akdeniz Sanayici ve İşadamları Dernekleri Federasyonu (DASİFED) and the Antakya Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Event supporters include the Cultural Office of the Austrian Consulate General, Lycée Sainte-Pulchérie, Edding, LAV, İpana/Oral-B, ÇOÇA, Pera Museum, Yaşam Atölyesi and Culture Meeting Point (Austria). Habertürk and Es Medya are among the media sponsors.
Visiting hours: Antrepo I: 09.00-18.00 MKM Beşiktaş Çağdaş: 10.30-18.30 The exhibitions will be open every day except 1 May. Admission is free.
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Note to editors
We Create the Right Climate for Raising Creative New Generations.
The Istanbul Children and Youth Art Biennial creates a space for sharing grounded in multiculturalism on a global scale, enabling different geographies and cultures to be expressed through the eyes and aesthetics of children. Children and young people, who can create work in many fields at the Biennial, from performance to dance and from video art to sculpture, also lead the way in building effective intercultural communication.
Enriched by the exhibitions, concerts, events and workshops of students on their way to becoming the producers and audiences of arts and culture of the future, the Istanbul Children and Youth Art Biennial is followed by a wide audience of writers, artists, art lovers, teachers, students, parents and members of the press. Previous Biennials, held at a variety of venues across Istanbul including its ferries, squares, railway stations, warehouses, galleries and museums, have been visited by 160,000 people.
