Panel: “The Effects of European International Cultural Policies on Artistic Creation Process”

Moderator: Beral MADRA- Independent Curator, Art Critic, Vice-President of AICA, the International Association of Art Critics, Turkey
Hanan KASSAB HASSAN- Writer, Cultural Operator, Syria
Pascal BRUNET- Director of Relais Culture Europe, France
İpek DUBEN- Visual Artist, Turkey
Emre KOYUNCUOĞLU- Theatre Director, Turkey
Ata ÜNAL- Theatre Theorist, Turkey

Beral MADRA- Our subject today is “The Effects of European International Cultural Policies On the Artistic Creation Process”. Thus, we will finally talk about art at the end of two days. I would like to introduce today’s speakers. I will begin with the right side of the table. Dr. Ata Ünal, is a doctor in the field of theatre and currently he is a theatre supervisor. Next to him, there is Pascal Brunet who is the Director General of Relais Culture Europe. Next to me is Hanan Kassab-Hassan, writer and Cultural Operator. He comes from Syria. At my left, Ipek Düben, well-known artist, and we can also call her a theoretician of art because since a very long time she has been making contributions to the world of art with her writings. On the other side of the table, Emre Koyuncuoğlu; stage director. She also is a well-known actress and dancer. Let me introduce myself in a few words: Beral Madra, I am an independent curator and at the same time I am an art critic. Currently, I am the President of the Turkish branch of the International Association of Art Critics. I am also a member of the European Cultural Association. Profiting from this occasion, I would like to thank the European Cultural Assocation for organizing this Forum. I also thank them for inviting me to this Forum as a moderator. However, I have to admit that at the end of the session I will infringe upon the duties of a moderator and address you as a speaker, if truth be told.

Today, this morning, I say ex oriente lux; “sun rises from the East” and call upon Dear Hanan Kassab-Hassan to speak.



Hanan KASSAB-HASSAN- Good morning. I have to begin by apologizing for my very bad English. You have to afford it and I will try my best to explain myself in English. I want to speak today about the importance of the intercultural relationships but in a very different way because we profit of what have been done in Europe and of the programs of European Commissions to emphasize and to strengthen the relationships we have not with Europe only but also with other artists from the region. And that’s why I’m happy to be here in Turkey because it can be a chance for us to be in relationship with Turkish artists and to benefit from them (Jordanian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Egyptian artists). We have a very special case in Syria because normally the condition imposed by the European Commission to give subvention and aid to artistic structure is to be an association. And in our legal structure we don’t have the possibility to be associations. We are individuals or we have to be part of the official Ministry of Culture. And normally the relationships between governments that was the formula we had for the past 30 years became now very bureaucratic and doesn’t make any good result. So, we cannot work, we work but it’s not very interesting to work with the official Ministry of Culture and we don’t have the possibility to be associations. So, we work with other associations to benefit from their programs to provide training and possibility for young artists. For the past 10 years I was working like a key person between the networks because I know a lot of networks working in the field of culture and young artists and very often I know about training, about workshops and I chose the proper artist to participate in. And it was very efficient because it permits our artists to be in contact with others to have new horizons and to develop a new vision of the art. And this was the beginning of new forms of arts in Syria. But I have to say that the difficulties imposed by the European programs are sometimes an obstacle to a real work. And I will speak about the negative points before I speak of the positive points of these programs.


First of all, that condition imposing to be an association doesn’t allow us to benefit of their programs and in countries where you don’t have a real civil society yet -because it will come- it is a difficulty and an obstacle. But we can manage to have relationships through other associations in France, in Italy, in Tunisia, in Jordan to work and make something very serious.

We benefit also of the programs provided by the foreign cultural centers in the region: the French Cultural Center, the Goethe Institute, Cervantes. And we can manage to have some serious work through them because they provide places to repeat and to work. They provide possibilities of sharing experiences through workshops and residencies and it is a good way to work with them.

The other condition is that huge, very complicated files you have to fill to present a project to the program of European Commission present every year. I don’t know if you have that very bad experience to fill that file and I can tell you nobody can obtain the subvention and every year we have the money going useless because nobody could fill that. What is paradoxical is that we are now trying to make workshops about how to fill these files and what is “le moyen devient un but” it becomes a goal in itself and instead of making that a way to have the subvention for culture, we are working to teach our young artists how to make that file. It’s a real problem and I can tell you that last year, for the attendees, nobody could have the chance to have their subvention. The only structures that could have it were the French Cultural Center, the Goethe Institute. That means European money went to European structures and not to the local structures.

The third point I want to say about the negative aspect is that we are seeing a very standard form of artist now emerging because of that relationship. I can tell you that now I’m a little bit fed up with words like dialogue, like cultural diversity because it becomes an alibi to make projects. It can be, you can only put the word dialogue or Mediterranean relationships or cultural diversity and you can invent a project that cannot be very serious in itself. And I can see how these key words are becoming now out of sense because you can see something very important which doesn’t use these words to make projects. So, I don’t like to see that very important intercultural relationship with Europe becoming a very hard and sclerosed form of relationship. We need more flexibility from the Europeans and we need to have the possibility to elaborate our projects and we need more than ever to be in relationship with our neighbors. It can be a bilateral relationship that can be very easy through networks.

I can tell you that through networks we are in communication with a lot of associations, a lot of structures and we can make not expensive at all projects because we are developing now a network of residency to allow to artists to come and stay in these countries, to make a journey through these countries; Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and why not Turkey. We can receive artists and they can stay without costing a lot of money because it’s not a hotel. And we have another formula, it’s the exchange “systeme de troc”; for example an artist can come to Syria and work in Syria and instead of giving him money, we can give him materials for his next work. Somebody who works on the spotlights can give us a projector and we can give him the possibility to work with other artists. And in that system we can make good projects without needing of a lot of money and it works very good. So, I think we have to emphasize the role of networks, of that relationship, to work within the official structure of intergovernmental relationship is very slow to be effective and it’s easier and more efficient to be in direct contact. Thank you.

Beral MADRA- Hanan Kassab-Hassan thank you very much. She has explained to us shortly but concisely the present-day vision in Syria. These cultural links with the European Union are established rather by the help of cultural centers because as he mentioned a civil society is not maintained yet in his country but it will be, so she hopes. Furthermore she pointed out the obstacles and dilemmas at that point, the major obstacle being bureaucracy. She stated that all their efforts being canalized to overcome bureaucracy, artists are unable to progress properly because they linger on the same subject over and over again and produce constantly on those subjects. Now, let us then turn to the West and see what Pascal Brunet has to say to us. Maybe he can also give an answer to Hanan’s questions.



Pascal BRUNET- First, I think we have to go back to what is to produce art, before we try to give an answer to this question. When I talk about this kind of question I refer to a book of Virginia Woolf, it’s a little novel; “A Room of One’s Own” and what she says in this book? She said “What I need when I want to write? What I need when I want to produce my own work? It’s very simple, I need a place, I need income and I need luck. Somewhere in my place I can decide to be alone and to work.” And I think it’s more complex in the book but it says the first things we have to think when we talk about what is artistic process; it’s not cooperation at the beginning, it’s not working together, it’s very often working alone with some means, some conditions to produce what I want to produce. If we talk about cooperation in this artistic field, we have to not forget this. Sometimes when we talk about mobility, about cooperation, we talk about another thing - not about the base of this artistic process at the beginning.

I was the former president of a network, we talked about it yesterday, the name is DBM; it’s a network about dance in the Mediterranean area. In this network we tried to imagine new ways to help artists. One of the ways is how it’s possible to imagine independent production, because one of the main things -if we refer to Virginia Woolf’s idea- is income. So, we will consider at the beginning the first point: income. International cooperation could be a way to produce independent income for artists. In a lot of countries the main problem is the structure of the production. Sometimes you can find governmental production, sometimes you can find private production and sometimes you can find anything. It’s very often like this in different countries. So, how it’s possible to produce an international system and in this system to find the guarantee of independence of the artist? It’s quite difficult because when you give money, you want something. When you give money to an artist, when you give money for a production, what you want? Sometimes people want to have something like an artistic position in the art critics, to be the discoverer, the people who knows all the world and to have a very strong place in his own country. It could be one of these things. It could be also a political objective. And it’s very often like this.

For example, the French government has some organization like AFAA or like French Cultural Center, these are political organizations. They produce and help art but the art becomes already political at the beginning. They want something for the relationship between our country, France and your country, when you walk with this kind of organization. So, if you try to think about the condition of independence, you have to face this kind of context and this kind of environment. We don’t find the solution. We try to find the solution with the European money and we applied to a project of Culture 2000 but at the end we don’t find a solution, we find different problems. One of the first problems we find in this network is in some countries, some artists find in our network something like a substitute of the Cultural Ministry and they come to the network, to DBM, as if they come to the Culture Ministry and they ask for a production. But the network is not the Cultural Ministry, you have to work on another level. And we have decided to stop this production fund because it’s difficult but to find the money, but the main reason if we have decided to stop this fund was because we don’t find the solution to this condition of the independence of the production. And it’s an open question at this day, how it’s possible to produce this? And I’m very interested to have some opinions from you about this.

The other thing in this network we have tried to work about is the question of the place. How it’s possible to support the emergence of places where it’s possible to work. I prefer to work here, I don’t have to be obligated to go to the north to work. So, how is it possible to develop the fund to help this kind of place development? And we work with European money about this and when you are outside the union it’s impossible to pay. And for this kind of things, how it’s possible to have strong investment and place, it’s necessary to find the money and the money doesn’t exist. You can go to UNESCO, but there is little money at the moment and for investment you can’t find money. You can find money for production but for place it’s impossible.

And the question about place is also a question of training because if you think about this question of cooperation and mobility, the first question is a place to work where you want but also a place to learn where you want. Because in the south you need to find the place, the money in the north, the place in the north and the training in the north. About mobility it’s difficult but about training it’s more difficult because training is very expensive if you want a permanent school. It’s quite easy to invite people for three days, two weeks, to give short training programs but if you want to really build a permanent school where it’s possible to learn two, three, four years about art, where it’s possible to produce research, where it’s possible to produce your own research where you want, it’s already a lot of money. And cooperation could be the way of finding this huge amount of money. But cooperation certainly with EU but cooperation with the different countries of an area. And this is completely impossible. After 5 years of trying to produce a place to learn and to study dance in the Magreb between Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, it’s really impossible to find national money and to put this national money to produce a school. So, it’s also a question opened at this time.

The last thing I want to say is when we talk about artistic process, we very often forget the question of the audience. And it’s certainly one of the main questions. It’s possible to produce art but art normally, exists to be shown to an audience. Normally at the end it’s to be shown. And how it’s possible to work also about the condition of how we will show and we will produce? How we will help the audience to come? How it’s possible to educate the audience to be aware of what is a work? And in the cultural cooperation it’s a completely forgotten subject. I think it’s one the main subjects we have to work, for us. For example, how it’s possible to show in France for me, some different work? How it’s possible to give the keys to understand this different work? And also, how it’s possible to work with you about this question of audience and for you to develop the audience? I think it’s one of the big subjects we have to work on …

Beral MADRA- Thank you Pascal. Here Pascal mentioned two issues: the first one being the condition of the artist. Here, he cited the needs of an artist and they really are all essential ones: a place, money to subsist and education. To put these through, it is obviously necessary to make some investments and he stated that this can be accomplished in the North by telling his experience in the South. He also mentioned the condition of the audience which is also very important because culture operators have a function such as presenting various art to different societies. He added that at this point society should be prepared to meet different or unfamiliar art forms. Now that we have mentioned the artists and audience, I entreat İpek Duben to take the floor; she may explain the situation from an artist’s point of view or maybe say something different.



İpek DUBEN- I will speak as an artist. I also wanted to mention the two issues presented by Pascal Brunet. I will start with a few anecdotes from my experience and then I will be brief.

Nowadays, there is a stunning dynamism in Turkey such as this Forum and mutual visits between Europe and Turkey. Before this, especially in the 90’s, special relations were developed between Germany and Turkey and we witnessed the gradual presentation of Turkish art in Germany. I speak as a visual artist; in our field there are problems other than those experienced in cinema, performing arts, especially theatre and music. Problems not related to Europe but to Turkey. Problems due to the relationship between the society and visual arts. How do we struggle against this? I see this as a struggle because, as we all know, the Turkish citizen is disconnected with his/her history. What is the relationship of society to the Turkish art which has emerged after the art of miniature and other traditional Islamic arts and which is under the process of Westernization? I wish to examine what Pascal said under a magnifying glass; that is to say, the condition of the communication between the art, artist and the spectator. Let alone the problem of introducing your own culture to a foreign culture as in the case of Turkish-European relations, how are we to communicate with the majority of our own society as contemporary artists of our own culture? I believe that what I am going to tell will manifest not only the problems of Turkey but also international problems which inclose artists from Syria and also the Middle East who are a part of the Islamic culture. In other words, while there is, on the one hand, the problem of understanding the cultures of Islamic societies outside the scope of Western Orientalism, there is also the problem of knowing whether we, contemporary artists, are able to establish cultural bridges with society. These problems are very deep, they are questioned and discussed at great length in Turkey. With two anecdotes, I would like to share with you the experiences I had in the West.

During my college years in New York, in the 1970’s, one of my teachers said: “Let’s see if Turks can paint”. This was a serious thing. The person who said this, was not just anyone; he was a well-educated, lettered and quite well-known artist. He came to college to critique. Back then, this question shocked me deeply: “Let’s see if Turks can paint”, in other words “Can Turks paint?” Another problem was the problem of attributing a meaning to my works in New York or in Europe. This problem of communicating meaning is a problem which makes it difficult for us to partake in Western cultural market. It kept our works from attaining value. In the 1990’s, Vasıf Kortun was in New York, he was striving to enter the market one way or the other and to organize exhibitions. Naturally, in those years Turkey was totally unknown to America. He tried to associate Turkey to the Balkans to warm up the atmosphere, which was a strategy that did not work out. Then suddenly, Russian artists appeared in the market. No sooner than they appeared, they acquired a huge gallery in Broadway with an investment of the Russian government and today, Russian artists have made great progress. I saw the same thing in Berlin last week. Today, you can speak of the contemporary Russian art in Europe.


Another example: currently, contemporary Chinese art is beginning to challenge the biggest and strongest art market of the world, America. Just before, Japanese art entered the market. In the 1990’s, what introduced Japanese art to New York was a foundation called Asia Society, emerged as well as a result of the big support of the Japenese government. After various activities of all kind were carried out in Asia Society, the Metropolitan Museum started to get interested in Japanese artists. That is to say what is our government doing in order to present our art and culture? Do the high officials have any interest in contemporary art? It is a known fact that Beral Madra’s solitary struggle to enter the Biennal of Venice one way or the other received no support for many years.

In 1994, I demanded support from the Municipality of İstanbul for a series of works. At that period, the Prosperity Party, i.e. an Islamist party had won the local elections for the first time in İstanbul. This was bad luck for me because the exhibition I was going to put on in the Taksim Art Gallery and my works displayed an attitude apart from the Islamic one. They could close the exhibition or I thought that they would tire me. I was introduced to the Cultural Works Director of the Municipality. They introduced me with laudable words. I didn’t tell him much about the exhibition, but I told him what other non-Western countries did to present themselves to the world. This fellow listened to all this, looked convinced and said “Ma’am, your place is not here, represent us aboard like Idil Biret does, here we have other things to do”. When I asked him what they would do, he replied “We rather want to resuscitate folkloric arts, Islamic art, our miniatures”. He meant it frankly. Upon his words, I explained that today’s most important occidental music soloists were raised in Japan. I told that Japanese kids take Western music education as a compulsory course in junior highschool. My works were exhibited and no reaction came from municipal authorities. Of course, they didn’t come to see it either. That went by. Years later in 2001, I recieved a lot of attention and financial aid from the Ministry of Culture for one of my exhibitions in New York.

In the course of my life, I witnessed a real awakening in Turkey. Today, we are able to maintain a dialogue with the Islam-oriented AKP government for artistic activities, we can ask for support. The question is -apart from the attitude of the government- to see whether our conceptual communication and exchange with the target public of contemporary and modern art has achieved the desired depth and richness. Can the problematic of communication and signification be effective in the determination of art market dynamics and the taste of intellectuals and well-off companies? What kinds of works are collectioned? Which art is valued in auctions? These indexes are a sign of social taste. For example, there was a talk of companies. The dimensions and conditions of contemporary art are so that corporations or museums have to lay their hands upon it because no one paints anymore little pictures to be hung on walls, at least most artists don’t. In this context, if you look at the scenery in Turkey; big corporation owners such as Koç and Sabancı still esteem artworks ranging from the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th, to 1950’s, this type of art is put a high premium on in auctions. Works other than these are not understood and are even subject to severe criticisms.

Let us keep on having meetings like this one, let us continue to speak and discuss. A gallery like Platform does a whole lot of international stuff and will keep on doing it, galleries opened their doors to foreign artists and will keep on doing it, Beral Madra will put through more exhibitions at home and abroad. What do these activities mean for artists coming from Europe and people passing through Istiklal street? Do they have a meaning? Do they care about it or not? My personal opinion is that they don’t care about it the least. I asked Vasıf how the activities in Platform were conceived. He replied saying that they don’t understand them at all, and that they don’t care. What has to be done then? What should we do? We have a museum: in Beşiktaş the State Museum of Painting and Sculpture under the directorate of the Mimar Sinan University. Yesterday I took my students there. You cross the threshold and stumble on the loose flooring. It’s a tragic situation because what we call national heritage, in other words a period comprising a hundred years of our history lies in there; very important paintings and sculptures, an important inventory of art history. This is our treasure. The Topkapı Palace is not our only treasure. Maybe one out of five hundred tourists visiting Turkey go to that museum, and when they go there they regret it and we feel ashamed. Why is it this way?

Just opposite to this museum there was another building; we used to go there for our driving licences or so, it dilapidated. In the most valuable corner of Istanbul, that is to say near to the Dolmabahçe Palace, on the seashore. Prime Minister Erdoğan suddenly decided: “My office in Istanbul will be there” and billions were spent on it. I was very glad to hear it. The building is renovated, cleaned up; something decent is erected in front of the museum instead of ruins. Why is the situation like this? Because we don’t educate our people. Lack of education and culture is the case of a major part of our population, not only that of the outskirts. We can’t see the problem only as aiming at a philosophy of education equipped with secular ideology. How many college professors today have ever been in a museum? How many of them know the existence of a museum in Beşiktaş, let alone that of contemporary art exhibitions? Even teachers who give art history courses don’t go to museums and galleries, only a cause of personal importance might compel them to go and visit. We are unable to communicate the cultural traces of our 300 year-old project of modernization to our people. How are we ever to expect them to understand contemporary art? To be able to understand modern art, one has to be educated in this field. This fact is true always and everywhere for everyone.

Yesterday while visiting the museum with my students, I showed them a huge painting by the Khalif Sultan Mejid Khan. Imagine, Sultan Mejid Khan… Painting figures is difficult; painting multiple figures is much more difficult. Turkish painters have very hardly come closer to it owing to their tradition; Khalif Sultan Mejid Khan paints an eight-figured oil painting on canvass. In the painting, one of the women plays the violin, her dress is very fashionable. Here you are! A work from the end of 19th century. We should ask who now knows about this artwork. Can there be a more important symbol or a document showing cultural revolution and change? To conclude: let us first educate our people, let us learn to invest our money on art and modern art, on every field of culture. Let us evaluate our art history ourselves with its past and present. Let us be the first ones to write it so that others can judge us afterwards. Thank you.

Beral MADRA- Thank you, Ipek Duben. For the first time since two days she has managed to explain what is actually taking place here to our foreigner friends with small stories taken out from here and there and thus entering mazes of the world of culture and art. Now, let us move to another artist, Emre Koyuncuoğlu. We might think that she will enter the details of the artistic environment in our country from another perspective.



Emre KOYUNCUOĞLU- Thank you. Now, I wish to approach the panel topic with concrete examples from performing arts, that is to say the domain of contemporary dance and drama which is my own field of production. I don’t want to use up my time here to enter into the details of the history of the development and transformation of the afore-mentioned arts in our country and to explain the historical process of our performing arts in the course of Westernization. While mentioning international culture policies, maybe it is of essence to bear in mind historical processes and developments, but since our panel takes place in Turkey, and since most of our listeners are already quite familiar with the subject, I assume that our European guests who are participating here to discuss common project opportunities have a general idea about the situation of art in our country and I therefore wish to bring the present day into discussion.

Another reason why I wish to discuss the present day is that, when I consider what a panel participant knew about Turkey in panels I attended about Turkish performing arts, I can talk about a rather grave picture. Until five to six years ago, near to nothing was known in Europe about our activities in performing arts except for exemplary theatres and artists. There were too many things to be discussed, experienced and shared before questioning international cultural relations and cooperations. Of course, this is also an indication of our relationships being totally isolated on international platforms in the field of performing arts, certainly other fields in our country may well be developed differently in this context. Only in the last ten years, tours generously organized by some of our theatres, collective works of independent artists once again put through with great generosity, partnerships established with self-sacrifice and sort of miracles as well as presentation festivals in Europe since two years on the occasion of Turkey’s nomination to the European Community have created the possibility to display a surprising picture beyond even the prejudices in the world of art about contemporary Turkish theatre or contemporary dance, when considered from the point of view of the European audience.

Even within this process, relations neglected for years that had been waiting in a corner sufficed to give the signs of a dynamic and creative relationship where mutual support was needed in many different fashions. Even as a country in the process of becoming a member of the European Community, it has had a positive effect on my artistic creation personally, while there has been an impartial, positive approach in relationships. In my speech, I would like to mention the change that occurred in me, around me and perhaps amongst performing artists which still continues to be experienced. I also wish to ask the questions that occur to us alongside with these.

All of my performances that were invited by international festivals or organizations or that were a result of collective productions were independent projects. What I mean is, I designed the project completely myself, I wrote it, I chose the artists I wanted to work with and I got support to realize the production without making any changes at any stage of the project. At the end, what came through was a totally authentic project independent in the intellectual and artistic sense. Of course, unfortunately projects of this kind do not come through in the speed of a regular list play. A play that you can put on in two months’ time in an institutional theatre takes maybe up to one year when you work independently. In other words, much energy, time and effort as well as financial and moral support is needed in the process of its formation. Now of course our theatre –or more generally, independent performing artists in Turkey- face great problems. They don’t even have an identity defined in our country. The most important influence of Europe’s international culture policies on the process of artictic creation is the quashing of the idea “they are a bunch of people having fun among themselves and this is enough for them; they don’t even have more audience than just that” which turned people’s attention to the works of independent performing artists in Turkey. I believe that at the end of the period of “Nomineering to nomination to the European Community”, contemporary performing artists who had not been known yet –once again scattered amongst pop stars- took their place within the picture of modern Turkey by participating in the European activities organized to present our art and culture. In other branches of art the opposite might be more likely to happen, but aside from a few private theatres, while near to all of the performance art productions in the country are staged by state-owned or municipal theatres –I don’t include commercial theatres in the artistic production at all-, the country’s contemporary performance arts were determined and defined by independently working and producing artists. This change came through partially as a result of European cultural policies and its demand for the different, the new. It is a desolate fact, but I can’t do without telling it to you. In one of my independent works which was a Belgium “Kunsten Festival des Artes” and Germany “Tanz im August” coproduction I was able for the very first time, to spare a part of the budget to actors and other artist friends in the company in return for their efforts. It was the Belgian festival director who asked me deliberately for that. For the first time, everyone took the rewards of their efforts. We are so used to working voluntarily without questioning that we somehow act as if it is shameful to ask for a reward for our efforts. Working in European festivals has reminded us of this. Earning money from the work you do is the beginning of your independent stance and validity in the market. This is of course by the same token an opportunity for in its broadest sense the performing arts institutions, associations, foundations etc. that have been organized and institutionalized in our country up till now to go through their own systems and forms of existence again and again in view of the formation of a new definition, the emerging of a new identity. At any rate, demand implies the reorganization of the market.

However, on the other hand, I dare not say that the expectations of the European audience from Turkish performance arts goes in parallel with the thought of Europe’s cultural policy. As far as performance arts are concerned, there is in Europe a deep-rooted and sound aesthetic taste and expectation which for the same reason is little susceptible of movement and transformation and thus conservative. Yet I use the word “conservative” in a very limited sense. I could call it a certain “conservatism of taste”. They don’t know yet where to place contemporary performance art works coming from the East, from Turkey, nor how to classify these works amongst themselves. They are well aware of the fact that they are face to face with modern but different aesthetics, but they still don’t know how to read these works, or rather, they can’t decide how they want to read them. Especially in the works coming from Turkey the presentation of Western aesthetics with a new content and the application of the sole structural aspect of the structures of Western origin imposes the necessity, like it or not, of a different reading. The insertion of a new content in the structure proposed by the West puts forward an alternative new structure by transforming the initial structure.

However, those artists of our country who make these suggestions are left unfortunately all by themselves. Whilst you are facing structures, institutions, supporting funds, associations and trained personnel who will write the history and theory of this business, in other words scholarly circles who will interpret the works and situate them within the history of art, you have to represent your work all by yourself in Europe. Here, it is very hard to find a level of equilibrium. Nevertheless it is important that these artists who have new propositions, who create independent works, who represent the avant-garde of their country in a way receive support from their countries and no matter what their work remains independent. For the context in which the work is to be situated is crucial: “where, in what period, with whom?” I’m not suggesting over-institutionalization, but multilateral cooperation so that the support remains independent, as well as the level of consciousness that will enable this multilateral cooperation. It is also very important to work in multilaterally with institutions within our country.

Beral MADRA- Thank you, Emre Koyuncuoğlu. These micro stories are of crucial importance to our understanding the problem. We have heard some very down-to-earth information. Now, I invite Dr. Ata Ünal to deliver his speech concerning once more the field of theatre.



Ata ÜNAL- Hello. I believe that I will speak in order to situate in an approriate way the speeches delivered by my colleagues perhaps in a context. As I proceed, I shall also mention the aspect of intercultural policies. The artistic reflections of Europe’s intercultural policies or several phases of this intercultural approach can be brought up. The former explanation for one of the reasons behind Europe’s intercultural policies was turning to the East for enrichment, especially in the histrionic domain after the infertilization of European spritiual environment with the advent of industrialized modern society. In the 1970’s, Peter Brook could be given as an example to this. The “Mahabharata” of Peter Brook was created out of stories he took from Indian mythology. Nevertheless, an interculturality of this kind resulted in the abstraction of its content in favor of its transformation into a profit-making tool for the cultural sector. It has always been subject to criticisms of this kind. In my opinion, this should be seen as transculturality rather than interculturality; the culture thus created tends to look for an Idea of culture underneath, whereas it is erroneous to look for an Idea of culture for, if such a thing exists, what we call the idea is at any rate the development thereof. Therefore, this type of interculturality rejects in principle culture. I wish to further my examination rather from the perspective of EU’s interculturality since we are talking about European relations. Thus, I want to bring a different approach. To this effect, we can set off with the structure of the EU and remain in the same direction as yesterday’s discussion. In my sense, there are two major definitions for Europe as manifested in the definitions given by most Europeans. One of them Europe defined, adopted and reflected by conservatives, relying on a common past; the other is the one adopted by social democrats and liberals relying on the scenario of a common future. Turkey has a place but in this second scenario; in other words, this fiction of a common future expressed in the motto “unity in diversity”. Accordingly, the European identity we have been talking about is almost a vertically constructed political and cultural identity. Then, the goal here is to conceive of a common future and to look for it rather than seek common values in history. It follows that when we consider the last thirty years, we recognize a top-to-bottom fictive European identity. For such an identity, a Europeanness where discourses of unity in diversity and cultural diversity are the main forms of expansion can be envisaged. It stems out following such a conception of EU precisely from the perspective of intercultural policies and artistic creation. Because of the perspective and the motive of this collective consciousness what we call valid for intercultural politics today as contemporary art is precisely this. It is likewise the main goal of intercultural policies because we can’t found a common future on a common past based on traditions. This latter may have a meaning solely for the perception of a certain type of Europeanness based on a common past. We should also see that actually this choice is not artistic but political and I think that the fact that the audience of this Forum are mostly interested or working in contemporary arts and our discussion topics that start to become more and more relevant to contemporary art are a token of this development. At this very point, artistic creation is on a knife-edge because the situation is as follows: when seen from Turkey’s standpoint, there exists a homogenous structure called Europe –it is an established fact according to the researches conducted in the last years in Turkey and Europe on Turkish minorities in Europe- and when seen from Europe, Turkey is a homogenous entity, and so are also the Balkans and the Far East. Of course, we have to make this statement not about Turkish artists, but about the target mass of the researches I suppose. Hence, I find it quite peculiar that amongst the afore-mentioned artistic creations there are only contemporary art forms included particularly in international policies. Therefore, what determines the cultural policies, more precisely these intercultural policies of Europe is progressing under this pretext of a common future and that’s why its main target is contemporary art and nothing else. However, this represents an element of risk. After this point, there is something I want to emphasize -before it was mentioned directly, but I think it is important as regards intercultural policies as well- we talked about the EU principle of unity in diversity, I consider this concept of diversity as a tamed concept of right. It is a very political concept as well. In my sense, unity in diversity lacks sufficient meaning. It’s rather an ideological or strategic choice; it would better be “togetherness” in diversity. Add to this that diversity is a way of “taming” differences. What is important is respect to differences, as rightfully mentioned yesterday by Serra Yılmaz. Besides, I think there was a presentation about “Love difference” today. Very well, but I found it as imposing as what it opposes because we are not obliged to like differences; we don’t have to like everything, but we should respect differences. For that reason, I think it obligatory that in the determination of those intercultural policies there be togetherness in diversity plus respect to differences.
The rest of my speech is constituted of brief titles, since I am the last speaker, I don’t want to prolong my speech. In the first place, I will give you the titles. If you have questions afterwards, I can develop them.
The forms that appear in artworks in the name of interculturalism: things that Hanan and Pascal already mentioned in a way; such as a cliché, monotony and uniformity arising during the process of artwork creation, the replication or repeated variations of the same image, etc.
Secondly, with regard to interculturalism, one has to take into account unequal encounters and cooperations are always to the detriment of the weak by reason of the means and the tools of the strong. For that reason, one must well chose the variables of cooperation. Moreover, maybe the same is true for those who wish that the programs and funds of the EU, of the European Commission become more flexible. For each country, each cooperation, these cooperation parameters should be redefined, instead of sticking to specified rules, I think this is one of the effects of intercultural policies on artistic creation. Add to this that this kind of an interaction runs the risk of bringing in a very different type of cultural emperialism, especially within the artistic aspect, such that it will result in a submission to the phantasy of others or a voluntary surrender to or acceptation of a clichéd imagination. Additionally, there is another risk I apprehend and I think it also is a situation I observe; interculturalism should not turn into a voluntary self-denial in order to gain the respect and approval of others. I’m not going to go into the details about these. This also has to do with the condition I name as “the orientalist within”. In countries like Turkey which have had key points of refraction in their history and educational system, this comes out whenever an unequally conditioned cultural exchange occurs. Looking at oneself through the internalization of the taste of others, from an artistic point of view, can be qualified as “the orientalist within”.

I keep talking about risks, but here is another one: especially within the context of Europe’s intercultural policies, the gradual deletion of language in the name of intercultural acceptation in certain forms of art, especially in performance arts and drama according to my observation. For language is very hard to understand; that’s why in face-to-face communication there is something like you have to lean on visuality. Rather then a tendency to opt for visual quality or the insistence of artistic creation on visuality, it is a tendency to eliminate language from a given artistic creation. Besides, we have to bear in mind that language is not only a cultural communication tool or the bearer of culture; it is in actuality one of the most important channels culture can take or one of its most important realms. In addition to this, language triggers not only words directed purely at concepts but also many audio-visual images and is very important in that respect for artistic creation.

Finally, I daresay that intercultural policies neglect the individual. I think they also neglect certain branches of art. I think that certain artists who are not institutionalized or who do not partake in international networks, who are in the realm of culture, but not in the cultural sector, and their creations are tried to be formatted immanently according to the standards of the cultural sector. That’s all for now. Thank you.

Beral MADRA- We thank Ata Ünal. He situated especially contemporary art most rightfully. That is to say, the whole cultural policy concerns evidently contemporary art. Even if Turkey invests millions in presenting its traditional art forms in Europe, it will probably be of no consequence. Once again, concepts such as orientalism and imperialism go along with this. For that reason, it would be good if those in Ankara paid attention to this. In other words, this business works through contemporary interdisciplinary art, through the expression of critical thinking across contemporary art. Thank you, Ata.

Ata ÜNAL- I would like to add something. Evidently it works through contemporary art, but there is a risk at that point as well…

Beral MADRA- You pointed out the risks quite pertinently; clichés, unequal cooperation, exploitation of artists… As you said, language is very important in theatre.

In the meantime, we’ve got news. The concert will take place in the Show Room at 1:30 PM. We started at eleven o’clock, so we have another forty minutes I think. In this case, as I had permitted myself in the beginning, I would like to deliver the speech I mentioned. Besides, I consider it to be a speech that will put the last touches to the speeches delivered since two days. It is also like a summary; it can therefore be a preparation to this afternoon. I will stick to this subject.

It is a known fact that the influence of the EU upon Turkey dates back to the 90’s. It all started on a personal level and then became institutionalized. Not surprisingly, culture acquired a certain independence, autonomy in Turkey with the advent of global economy and politics and it is mostly supported by the private sector. In the same period, contemporary art productions in Istanbul in the 90’s broke up with the cultural policy of Ankara. We could say that the art scene in Istanbul turned its face to Europe. One has to admit that this relationship was unilateral in the beginning. Nowadays, it is perhaps becoming more and more bilateral; at least today in this room, we partake in a bilateral exchange. Nevertheless, we are constantly takers, we can’t give anything for the moment.

In my sense, the relationship between Turkey and Europe is rather pragmatic at present and it doesn’t implicate any true commitment. Culture is being used in a sense. Permit me to say that it is being abused. That is to say: the government, the local administration and the private sector alike use culture as a means to enter Europe. I find cultural actors extremely weak for the moment. I feel obliged to qualify the situation as contradictory, intricate and a little disconnected because Turkish cultural industry is unable to respond to the cultural industry we are dealing with. Evidently, we receive a lot of aid from Europe, the private sector gives great support, but central and local administrators don’t provide such support for the time being. European institutions and foundations include us in their programs and the private sector, well aware of this fact, uses art completely as a means of publicity. I will speak openly though: we haven’t witnessed any response, any reaction, any action by central and local administrations. We have great difficulties accessing public funds. This is the situation we are in.

We are in a crucial phase. At least the cultural actors or intellectuals have to change slightly their point of view. Europe started to impose its system first in Eastern Europe, then in the Balkans and this system which is not fully developed in those regions suddenly came upon Turkey. However, Turkey began to represent a different function: it is being used as a probationary region. With Turkey, an expansion from Southern Caucasia to the Near and Middle East is at stake. For that reason, I would like to stress this well: let us no longer qualify Istanbul as a frontier or a bridge. We have already gone through all this. In every biennale, this city was called a “bridge”, but this is not the case anymore. Here, Istanbul plays the intricate role of a middleman and it is very hard to call it a bridge. It constitutes rather a zone leading to the East.

Here, the complexity is both an emblematic and a charismatic one, but it is bizarrely equidistant from Europe, Anatolia and the East. In other words, Istanbul feels itself all by itself. It is spoiled with indulgence and is under the rule of micropolitics that create macropolitics. This identity is both a fusion and a confusion, i.e. its exact opposite. That is to say, the frontier of Europe has now shifted to the East of Turkey. Over there, the present situation can be expressed in the following way: there are many cities like Istanbul on the Eastern border: Tbilisi, Baku, Teheran, Damascus, Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Tel Aviv etc. They are emblematic and charismatic cities as well and they are cities that go through a transformation. You might think I’m exaggerating, but Istanbul will soon become a representative for all these cities. However, the problem here is: the modernity of these cities, i.e. a kind of “false appearance-shine modernity” is quite disconnected. Postmodernity followed post-colonialism and the post-Sovietic era. Globalism had wide-range effects in these cities. We shouldn’t forget the fact that these cities charged with history and tradition are not affluent democratic cities. Their condition actually symbolizes the outlook of Europe on countries outside Europe.

I claim that Istanbul has a new function. This function can be described as follows: founding a network within Turkey, for İstanbul is more or less detached from Turkey as I have mentioned earlier. After that, the development of its relationship, network with the vast Eastern zone. Only then can it have an authentic relationship with Europe. As a curator, I run after artists who are aware of this.

Last week we opened an exhibition in Diyarbakır. The artists in the exhibition came from the afore-mentioned cities and I esteem that Diyarbakır can become a centre for these people because it is the junction point of the Middle East and Caucasia. Hanan, whose thoughts I deeply respect, said to me: “In this region, people can move around in buses or cars, they don’t need to take an aeroplane”, which is, in my opinion, something very important. In effect, our artist from Tbilisi came by bus and on the way he saw the whole region of Eastern Anatolia. You can get information about this exhibition on the website www.diyarbakirsanatmerkezi.org


In this city, on the one side there is the Ulu Cami, on the other what Ata named “unity in diversity” is being created at the moment. I would like to show views from some of the works exhibited. Here is the sewing of a map of Europe. The artist coming from Southern Cyprus tried to make people do this and everyone took interest in it. But in Turkey, instead of sewing the map together, people cut out the maps; the artist was surprised. This was one of the works presented. This is the interior view of the Diyarbakır Art Center (DSM). Here you see the works of an artist from Damascus and Ali Aksakal from Turkey. And this is the sculpture created by Ruben Arevshatian from Yerevan. Thank you for giving me this occasion. Now, let us please take your questions.

A listener- Hello, I will ask my question to Beral Madra. My name is Dilek. How was the exhibition in Diyarbakır received by the public? How many visitors came? Do they really feel anything in that exhibition? Can they identify with the goal of the exhibition?

Beral MADRA- As you know, the DSM will accomplish its fourth year in September. There is a very important mass of audience. In other words, I believe that the problem of audience mentioned at this table has been overcome in these four years because people are well aware of the fact that through art and culture they open up to the world or be able to heal the effect of the trauma they suffered.

Filippo FABRICCA- Only a comment on the first intervention. I agree perfectly with the names of the projects with diversity, dialogue and everything... You were speaking about the relationship with the neighbors and I think it’s very important because normally in the projects about diversity you have to search new relationships and many times they use it to omit or to forget the neighbor and to search other aspects of the relationship. An example of this is in Spain between Catalan and Spanish for instance. Many intercultural or multicultural projects try to forget that Spanish people is the people from the country. So, they are intercultural and they can omit the Spanish one. It’s in the part of Catalonia of the Basque part. And then we fall in the intercultural works or projects that are giving all the arguments for a new ethnic nationalism. So, I agree very much that in the projects of the Union or of UNESCO, they forget many times the work between neighbors.

And with the second intervention about the audience, I would like to ask at cultural area to try to work together with the academic and social area. Because I think that the academic area, they can have very beautiful ideas but many times they end in a book on a shelf and nobody knows what they were speaking about. And I think that normally academics are trying to search the feedback of the social area. And I think it can be a very interesting collaboration between artistic, cultural area and academic area because the academic area needs creativity to reach to the social area. For instance, in Belgium I know the work of a Moroccan actor who works in schools and I suppose it will be the item of the afternoon. But it’s very interesting, reaching many more things than the teachers and the academics on intercultural education. And I agree completely with the last intervention about the item of contemporary. I think if in the Union when they were speaking about diversity, at one hand they are speaking about diversity but at the other part they put conditions immediately on this diversity. So, it’s like a contradiction, something ambiguous. Thanks.

Beral MADRA- Thank you Filippo.

Aliye KURUMLU- Hello, I represent the Platform 0090 of Belgium. I engage in theatre as well. In fact, I would like to give a brief information, mostly about the problems mentioned by Emre. We experience these problems very often in Europe and as the Platform, we took the following decision: if we can introduce our artists not via language but visual elements, we could perhaps find a more effective solution to the problem. I’m not talking about resolving the problem definitely; that implies a very long process. Consequently, we decided to put through a program in February 2006: we are planning to present young and experimental works created in and about Turkey as a one-day long program in Belgium and within this program, we are thinking about bringing in perhaps not whole works but at least samplers. Our goal is to reach European artists and the programmers of European cultural organizations and to show them these works in a day. Thank you.

Mesut ARSLAN– My question will be for Monsieur Brunet. Weird enough, also I represent the 0090 Festival of Belgium. This makes the situation about Belgium even more interesting because the people I talked with within these two or there days attest that particularly in the last years there has been a good exchange between Belgium and Turkey in culture, art and contemporary art. I think it is an interesting point. I have a question. We also face problems like Ms. Ipek mentioned about her professor in the old time, and problems like the ones encountered by Emre. I engage in theatre and organize the 0090 Festival together with Aliye and Murat. Moreover, I participate in these meetings to take the first step within the international artist exchange project of the Flemish Drama Institute between Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. There is a remark I want to make and a question I wish to ask to especially Brunet. We are striving to do these things neither because we are Turkish or whatever, nor because we expect to gain anything in the end. These meetings are actually held, the performances you saw yesterday and the performances you will see today are done for the sake of the artists. You sit over there, we here. There is nothing else to it than that. In my sense, art has neither a religion, nor a culture –a “European” culture”, a “this” culture, a “that” culture. The problem is that there is much naivety, a naïve reaction. If a Turkish artist or an artist of Turkish origin attempts to do something in Europe, people think “Say, are there enough Turks around”, this is the question they ask. On the contrary, the artist already had a capacity to perform his art for a European, not just for a Turk and this capacity now is unleashed. The question I wish to ask Monsieur Brunet is: What does Europe do in this context? Let me give you an example, M. Brunet: we observe that as a result of our instigation foreigners, artists and coordinators of foreign origin enter little by little the commissions that distribute funds and subsidies in Belgium. Does Europe actually have a conscious investment or study to that effect? Thank you.

Pascal BRUNET- I think when we talk about culture, we have to talk about complexity. And when we talk about Europe, we have to talk also about complexity. So, when we have to talk about culture in Europe, it’s a very complex subject. And it’s difficult to talk about Europe as a very fix identity. It’s a lot of different streams and sometimes you have a mainstream somewhere and sometimes you have another stream. And you have this difference of the streams also in different countries in Europe. So, I think we can talk about the community and try to isolate what is a goal of the community. But we have also to try to put this picture of what the community wants and it’s quite complex at this time in Europe. Maybe you listen to some talks, debates in France about the next referendum and you can see that in France there are a lot of streams, it’s very complex at this time.

So, for your question, I think it’s impossible to talk about cultural policy in Europe. It’s possible to talk maybe about different projects and some projects go in a way and some projects say something else. And at the end the picture is very conmplex. So, we can see at this time the emergence of new policies, the neighborhood policies. About this new policy, one of the important debates is that we don’t know if it could be possible to put culture in this policy. And it’s an important question because when you look at the new border of Europe, and when you look at the new border in the north, northeast, this new border breaks a lot of artistic circulation in the north. When you are in Moldavia or when you are in Belarus and when you are in the countries of the northeast, all the artistic life was build for a long time in relation, in connection between rich, different countries. And the apparition of this new policy and this new border, raise a lot of very important questions. How it’s possible to imagine this old Europe completely closed? How it’s possible to imagine that we have a strong border against a lot of artistic circulation? We have all this kind of questions. And it’s difficult to give precise answers. Inside this situation a lot of people, some governments, civil society try to impulse more projects than policy. It’s what I can answer ….

Beral MADRA- I would like to give the last word to Hanan and then close the session.

Hanan KASSAB-HASSAN- I just want to say something about the policy of Europe. We know that part of Europe subvention comes from the pocket of European citizens and they don’t want to pay money just by curiosity, to know the others and the culture of the others. They are paying taxes and part of these taxes goes to the culture because it can absorb violence in some regions, because it can promote new identity in some regions. When we are speaking about Mediterranean identity, it’s a way to fight against their nationalist identities in some region, in mine at least. So, we are not asking, we don’t have to treat Europe like a mine of treasure to exploit but we can build an equal relationship between two partners and profit of the new and fresh vision of some countries, artists of some countries and the curiosity of some others. And that’s why I was speaking about very different ways of building relationship without having a lot of money and without costing a lot of budget. But, it doesn’t mean either that we like to work always in very poor conditions. We need some money especially in performing arts. You know that you can’t make anything without budget. You can paint alone, you can produce music alone but you can’t make a performance without money. And if a performance is to go and to show itself abroad, it needs some subvention and that’s why I’m speaking about new criteria of making that. Thank you.

Beral MADRA- So, we are closing this session. I would like to thank everybody who came early this Sunday morning. Thank you.