Project
Felix & Sinop, Turkey: Collecting the Future
Felix Meritis participates in the project Collecting the Future in Sinop, a city which lies on the northernmost point of the Black Sea coast of Turkey.
For thousands of years this city has been a strategic point in the cultural and trade systems of the Black Sea Region. During the cold war period Sinop became the "big ear" of the western alliance and was used as a NATO base to monitor the USSR. After the collapse of the eastern bloc there has been no need for the NATO base in Sinop, which created economic and employment issues.
After a period of isolation, Sinop is now opening up. Today, Sinop is getting more popular due to its location and resources. However, the new transition of the city should be carefully evaluated, in order to achieve sustainable development. Collecting the Future argues that citizen's futures should be determined by those same citizens. How should the future of Sinop be developed? What elements of the past must be preserved when constructing the future? Which examples and models should we use? Next to a temporary ‘City Museum', the project will be searching for answers to these questions; starting with an international forum on 7 and 8 September.
Seminars and workshops will take place where Sinop citizens will have an opportunity to exchange ideas and knowledge with local and European experts and artists. Ideas developed will be both published during the project in papers (Sinopsis) and will be documented with a book after the project is finalized. Collecting the Future will build a foundation for regional and local projects which will be incorporated in Sinop in future years.
See the first edition of Sinopsis (in Turkish only) collecting stories from the Sinop citizens as well as an article published by the Hurriyet Daily News on the 22nd of August 2011 on the right side of this webpage.
From the Netherlands Michiel van Iersel (freelance art curator) and Amie Dicke (artist), as well as 20 other artists from Turkey, Romania and Austria will visit Sinop and participate in the project.
This project which is supported by the ‘Promotion of the Civil Society Dialogue II' grant program between EU and Turkey is the extension of the 3rd Sinop International Biennial which has been realised last year.
Project partners: Felix Meritis, AltArt from Romania, Collabor.at from Austria.
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