art and culture

11:01

“I never had a dream to study art. The painting was just a game for me. It was to watch my father while drawing pictures,” Painter Esma Sürücü says her story of painting started by chance.

14:49

Many musicians have faced many financial and moral difficulties due to lockdowns after the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Musician Cansu Nihal Akarsu organizes online concerts but she says online concerts don’t draw the attention of people like live concerts. She underlines that about 100 musicians committed suicide, “I think there is a general ignoring approach. No one talks about these suicides.”

11:24

The culture of dengbêj is the Kurdish oral literature. Evin Dulek and Sarya Ertaş, who are known for their songs, adopt this culture when they were very young. They say they feel free while singing songs.

11:49

10:34

10:16

In times of a pandemic, everyone is staying home. Shall we make this period more tolerable with a movie diary? We recommend you to watch the films below having different and impressive topics that will allow you to discover the fascinating power of cinema and to look at life in a different way.

09:43

Do you know how a life oppressed with pain strengthens in a woman's voice? Dengbêj Meryem Tuncer explained her journey to be a dengbêj.

10:06

Theater and Cinema actress Arin Sibel Arslan states that she performs to make visible the violence against women, sexual abuse, violations of rights against LGBTI + individuals who become the target of hate crimes and the demand for education in the native language. “There is no space, resources, or support to produce in the country, particularly to produce correctly. We come together with people like me and create what is impossible; because we need to do so,” says Arin.

11:55

“Those who mention Islam and feminism together are always criticized and always have enemies but they get stronger in a way and this movement has found a place in Turkey and in the world. Over time we can say more, but it is already possible to say that this movement opens a new area in Turkey,” says a Muslim feminist activist and musician Rümeysa Çamdereli.

09:02

Percussionist Dilan Yeşilyaprak states that her biggest dream is to give concerts all over the world with an all-women percussion group and she says, "I want to change the stereotype that says playing percussion instruments, requiring physical force, is men’s occupation.”

15:45

09:39

“I wrote Turkish poems in years when I didn't know how to write in Kurdish. When I started to write in Kurdish, both my childhood memory and my other memories followed me. As I wrote in my native language, I felt that my missing parts were completed.

10:43

“All of us were children growing up overnight.” The children who were unaware of the reality that existed and thought the world was just where they lived… In short, 'Zarokbum' is the story of my own reality journey,” says director Ayten Başer.

09:34

“The essence of our work is to be able to convey the stories of women with their own narratives and their own voices, about what they experience in their life in the past and present and how they rebuild their lives and themselves. I think that this archive of women’s stories will be accessible to all of us on a platform where we can listen to each other and hear each other, and thus, the archive will be a window for us to learn from each other and to not feel alone,” says Aslı Takanay.

09:51

Selda Uzunkaya says that the story of a woman begins with being born as a girl and continues until her death. For her, if a woman wants to write; she does and achieves this without being dominated by anyone. And women write their stories they want by ignoring everyone!

09:30

Meryem Düzgün Kaya known as “Painter wearing Shalwar” in Kavacık village is an orthopedically handicapped but she never sees this as an obstacle. She keeps painting despite all difficulties. Having managed to turn her disadvantage into an advantage, Meryem keep painting with the support of a painter who moved to her village when she was 45 years old. She never lets go of her dreams and says that anyone with and without disabilities can make their dreams come true by performing art.

15:13

After her retirement, opera singer Selmin Günöz has pioneered the foundation of the Barış Çocuk Senfoni Orkestrası (Peace Children’s Symphony Orchestra) by reaching out to children who cannot take musical education. Inspired by El Sistema, the model of musical education in Venezuela, the orchestra’s target group are children living in the regions where crimes and drug abuse are most common. Günöz says that they do not choose children in accordance with this educational model; they only give them the right to have an art education.

14:25

Uçan Süpürge (Flying Broom) International Women's Film Festival will be held between 27 May and 3 June this year. This year’s theme of the festival is “Get out of limbo”

14:22

Oya Uslu, the author of children's books, states that children's literature does not tolerate any mistakes and says, “Even being well-intentioned is not enough in itself. You should know philosophy, sociology, and psychology, just as if you write for adults. Otherwise, there is no chance for satisfying texts to be created!”

10:42

Women rebuild a life with their words. Women being completely different from men for their language used in the literature, become “invisible” in the world of literature. In fact, this world needs women who write in their own window with their native language.