City and Art Project is a networking project for communication between art universities, cultural institutions and operators in order to carry out artistic and theoretical research about the relations between the city and the arts, and to archive and publish the research. It is also an educational project as it foresees the artists, designers, arts and design academics and students working together and exchanging ideas.
Within the scope of the project there are forums, workshops, exhibitions and shows. Artists, designers and theoreticians from different cities and various disciplines carry out comparative artistic research in different cities within the framework of a concept developed together and consequently create collective artworks. The artworks have to be “public interventions” dealing with the city and involving the citizens in the process. Therefore the research processes are as important as the outcomes and the resulting artworks are generally related to the process. The City and Art Project, whose basis was founded in Istanbul, has been realised between 2008-09 under the leadership of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, with the collaboration of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Malmö University School of Arts and Communication, ELIA European League of Institutes of the Arts, Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts, Mersin University Faculty of Fine Arts, Consulate General of Sweden, European Cultural Association, and the support of the Promotion of Civil Dialogue Between EU and Turkey Project.
First, the City and Art Forum (www.cityandart.org) was organised in order to prepare the theoretical basis for the subsequent practices. The Forum aimed at bringing together European art and design academia with cities' cultural actors in order to question the present and future role of the art universities in relation with the cities in which they are located. In order to draw an overall picture of the present situation and the tendencies which will influence the future, European cultural, educational and media policies have initially been revisited and their influences on the metropolitan culture and the position of the arts in the metropolitan society have been discussed. The Forum then focused on the notion of art in public space and the public intervention of art. Examples of art and design practices related to the city and the arts, as well as methods of learning and teaching in which the city is used as the site or material of the arts and design practices have been presented. The content of the forum was published in 2009 as a bilingual publication in Turkish and English. The digital version of the book can be downloaded online. In the first stage of the City and Art Project, after the City and Art Forum took place in Istanbul, workshops were organised under three different titles: “Discovering Urban Rituals” consisted of workshops and exhibitions realised in London and Istanbul, “Opt In - Opt Out” in Istanbul, Mersin and Malmö, “Body and Form” in Istanbul and Vienna. The first phase of the City and Art Project ended with a final exhibition which displayed the whole project process and the artworks created at Tophane-i Amire Culture and Arts Center in Istanbul. The project process has been published in Turkish and English as a film and book. The book and catalogue titled “immlv” may be downloaded online.
This year, the second phase of the City and Art Project developed within the scope of Istanbul 2010 European Cultural Capital, consists of two different projects:
The first one, “Urban Trials” involves workshops and exhibitions realised with the collaboration of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. The artworks, created during the “Urban Trials” workshops organised between the 14th-25th of June, 2010, were displayed in the exhibitions that took place at Platform 3 Contemporary Art Center and the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. Academics and students from the two universities will meet in Istanbul between the 20th-30th of November, 2010.
The second project in 2010 is “Samples”. “Samples” is realised under the leadership of the Altart Foundation from Cluj, with the collaboration of the Foundation for Urban Projects and Research from Sofia, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, European Cultural Association and Kadırga Art Production Center. Comparative research will be carried out in Istanbul and Sofia, it will deal with everyday day practices taken from the city life and traditions by considering them as examples, and then create an artwork that can be related to any city. “Samples” will be performed on the 14th of September in Kadırga Park.
Selections of works produced within the scope of the City and Art Project will be displayed at Kadırga Art Center, Sanat Limanı and Kartal Cultural Center in December 2010.
