Studio Bosporus

With the Studio Bosporus festival, the Tarabya Cultural Academy celebrated its 10th anniversary from September 3 to October 31, 2025, at 22 venues. The festival center was the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien. This venue, with its rich history, could not be more suitable. There is hardly a district of the city where the 60-year history of the German-Turkish recruitment agreement can be read better than in Berlin-Kreuzberg. That the connections between the two countries are significantly older than the “history of the guest workers”, however, seldom gets told as part of the canonical story. The artistic and discursive contributions of the festival participants dealt with local contexts, global challenges and current urban tendencies from a wide variety of perspectives. German-Turkish relations at the time of the First World War thus formed an important starting point. Another anchor point was the 60th anniversary of the German-Turkish recruitment agreement, which set in train a migration process that has shaped and changed both countries. Works on pressing issues such as the climate crisis and processes of urban transformation also presented how global issues affect both countries. Turkey, and especially its economic draft horse, Istanbul, have over the past 20 years been shaped by neoliberal urban planning projects: the controversial new airport, to which hundreds of thousands of trees and numerous villages fell victim; the high-rise buildings and gated communities that have led to increased segregation. The artistic works dealing with women’s rights, LGBTQ and body politics brought social grievances into focus. In 2020 alone, 404 women were murdered in Turkey. Violence against queer people in public spaces is increasing; the Pride parade has been banned for years. In 2021, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, which aims to prevent violence against women across Europe. The festival also included artistic works that deal with the location and purpose of residency programs themselves and discuss the question of how, at a place that is separated from the neighborhood and the city by a wall, contact with the local art scene and local artists can be established and maintained. The focus of the literature and discourse program was on present-day German society. In 2021 it was Jewish, post-migrant, queer, black and so much more. This is not least the result of migration over the past few decades, which has significantly changed culture and civil society. This new reality also creates the need for a changed perspective on the past and present of the German social order. Literature and essay writing are practices that can map in a special way the complexity of the history and stories of all the people living here. The search for networks and affiliations, for global issues, history and stories will continue in future to be the work of artists from Germany and Turkey. And in this Tarabya Cultural Academy will continue to do its part.