Past Events
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2010
June 28 - July 3 - Black Sea Academy
Caravansarai participated in a 6 days platform for capacity building, networking, knowledge exchange and experience sharing, bringing cultural entrepreneurs and managers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to Istanbul.
Black Sea Academy information on Rhiz.eu
February 19-21 - CaravansarAID at Supermarket Artist-Run Fair
Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden
'CaravansarAID' comes to the rescue of the impoverished Swedish artists with aid packets of food, healthcare and cleaning products. The products were brought from Turkey as humanitarian aid, presented in our booth, then dispersed to artists and guests of the fair.
» more images
» website of Supermarket
» Caravansarai on the Supermarket website
February 20 - 1st Annual Swedish Turkish Meatball Eating Contest
Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden
In the first ever attempt at “Meatball Diplomacy”, Caravansarai teamed up with artists Arni Gudmundsson and Cristian Rieloff to host a competitive meatball eating extravaganza at the Supermarket Art Fair in Stockholm. On Saturday, February 20th at 6pm sharp, competitors lined up at the trough to compete for the coveted “Gravy Cup”. The ten competitors had 10 minutes to consume (without barfing) the most meatballs possible.
The champion, Adam Klimczak from Poland ate an incredible 55 meatballs!
» more images and the video
» website of Supermarket
» Caravansarai on the Supermarket website
» 1st Annual Swedish Turkish Meatball Eating Contest on Facebook
January 28-30 - New Times New Models Conference
Pekarna, Maribor, Slovenia
Why Independence? How Independence (and what is independence anyways?) Ex-squatters, squatters, activists, artists, those who had accepted governmental positions themselves and many others met to discuss governance models and strategies of cooperating with the government (or at least getting from them what you want). It was interesting to compare case studies from ex-Yugoslavians (who put themselves in the US vs. THE GOVERNMENT position) with those operating independent spaces in the UK (who found strategies to keep under the radar of the authorities, gaining their funding from entrepreneurial or private sources).
» more images
» website of New Times New Models complete with images, information and audio recordings from the conference
2009
December 15-18 - De Baak Young Executives Program Consultancy
Nine recently promoted Dutch executives were visiting Istanbul as part of their international training seminar. Caravansarai acted as the 'case study' for their trip. It was interesting for us to present ourselves to a group that knew nothing about artists, Istanbul or the art and culture environment and interesting for them to get a glimpse into our 'work without working hours'.
» their blog (in Dutch)
November 16-19 - Eastern European Res Artis Meeting
'Re-Tooling Residencies' Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
A regional meeting of Res Artis, the worldwide network of artist residencies and the launch of their Training and Support Program. We met a lot of interesting people opening new spaces in Poland, Latvia and around the Eastern European region. Afterwards we had a Baltic Sea Summit and discussed future projects that we would like to create in the Gdansk shipyards.
» more images
» more about: the conference on the Res Artis website
October 2-5 - 1st International Artist Initiatives Istanbul Meeting
Istanbul 2010 Art Production Center Kadirga
Kadirga Liman Caddesi No:82 Kumkapi, Istanbul Turkey
A fair with discussions and presentations involving other artist-run spaces in Istanbul and around Europe. At the fair, we began a collaboration with a Swedish group, which took place in February 2010.
» more about: the meeting
September 23-29 - New Tactics, an Online Discussion
A moderated online discussion between international art spaces and activists. Topics included: hosting activists in artist communities, community engagement, resources, collaborations
» read: the discussion
June 26-30 - Emerging Art Space Support Initiative (EASSI) Retreat
An initiative of FreeDimensional, Wasan Island, Ontario, Canada
Getting to know the other emerging spaces in the EASSI program through discussions, training, meals, swims and presentations.
» more images
» more about: the EASSI program
March 25-27 - Cairo Residency Symposium
Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt
A meeting of residency programs from the Middle East, Caucuses and Turkey. After, at the Al Fayoum oasis, we conducted our first 'Caravansarai Summit' meeting (brainstorming and planning for the future). We also traveled to Alexandria to visit our friends at Gudran for Arts and Development and got full on fuul.
» more images
» the website of: the symposium
2008
October 16-19 - Caravansarai @ Comtemporary Istanbul Art Fair
Caravansarai had a booth at the big fancy Istanbul art fair, supported by the Istanbul Capital of Culture 2010 Organisation.
» more images
» the website of: Contemporary Istanbul
May 10-18 - Caravansarai @ Kunstvlaai
Caravansarai, along with a group of other artist initiatives in Istanbul, traveled to Amsterdam to present our spaces and meet people. We all learned a lot about how to navigate the European contemporary art world.
» more images
» the website of: Kunstvaai
April 25 - Virtual Chef - Birthday
Caravansarai had its first birthday. To celebrate we collected birthday cake recipes from around the world - Chocolate Torte from the States, Bunny Cake from Turkey, Sachertorte from Germany and Fondant from New Zealand. We enjoyed cakes and beers with over 50 revelers.
» more images
» Virtual Chef Birthday on the Virtual Chef Webpage
April 5 - Does it make a difference? Nordic Summer University at Caravansarai
Erkan Saka visited caravansarai as part of a symposium with the Nordic Summer University's 'Intercultural and inter-religious philosophy and dialogues' group. Discussions about art, philosophy and culture in social and cultural development, moderated by by Oleg Koefoed, a Philisophical Creator with the Gravitations Center for Action Philosophy in Copenhagen, Denmark.
» more images
» website of the Nordic Summer University
2007
November 26 - Virtual Chef : Iran / Never Been to Tehran
Meal: In Istanbul, we find the ingredients for a dish, planned by Ashkan Sepahvand in Iran (Berlin). On the night of the dinner, we receive real-time instructions on how to cook our meal.
Slideshow: Imagine a city that you’ve only seen in reproductions or perhaps have merely heard about through indirect sources—the nightly news, hearsay, literature, magazines, movies, and the Internet. Using these secondhand clues as firsthand research materials, invited worldwide participants—who have Never Been to Tehran—will take photographs (from their home base) of what they imagine Tehran to look like.
» more images
» Virtual Chef Iran on the Virtual Chef Webpage
» Never Been to Tehran webpage
October 26 - Virtual Chef : Romania / Hitchhiking to Transylvania
Meal: The Virtual Chef project explores, through food, the international and diverse aspects of Istanbul. Here in the city Julie Upmeyer finds the ingredients for a meal, planned by Anamaria Galea in Romania, we receiving live instructions on how to cook our meal.
Video: Iuliana Varodi invited ten video artists to hitchhike to Morisena in Transylvania. On the way and during the residency, crossing various cultures and situations, the artists used video art as a mean to explore and create, collaborating in their endeavors.
» more images
» Virtual Chef Romania on the Virtual Chef Webpage
» Hitchhiking to Transylvania project page
June 27-30 - ENTER Caravansarai
'Enter Caravansarai’ was the opening festival/workshop/party, celebrating the beginning of a new art/social/creative workshop/networking space in Istanbul. It was an open invitation for anyone who wished to be a part, to teach, perform, present or in any other way engage the audience for 30 or 60 minutes of time.
We operated this event in live-realtime with our partners, Taidekoulu MMA, in Suomenlinna – the UNESCO Sea-Fortress island, off the coast of Helsinki – in Finland, mutually contributing to each other’s event.
June 26 - Caravansarai Introduction Meeting
The introduction and brainstorming meeting of Caravansarai Project Space. After an introduction by Julie Upmeyer, questions, concerns, problems and ideas were discussed. We talked about open source culture, wikis, funding, participation and the difficulties and advantages of an independent space.
» more images
» listen: to the dialogue
May 18 - DPU Social Mashup
Students from Developmental Planning Unit at University College London had been working in Sulukule district of Istanbul with area NGOs and the residents to develop an alternative development plan for the community. As a chance to make some parallels between their work as urban planners and our own work as socially engaged artists, Andrew and Julie invited the group to Caravansarai to share information and methodologies.
» more images
» listen: to part 1
» listen: to part 2