"The Voice of Saya" by Betül Kotil, the winner of the İGART Art Projects Competition, met with art lovers at Istanbul Airport.
The first of the IGART Art Projects Competition, realized by Istanbul Airport operator IGA, was hosted by Prof. Dr. Under the chairmanship of Hüsamettin Koçan, members of the executive board Prof. Dr. Gulveli Kaya, Prof. It was completed as a result of the meticulous work of Marcus Graf, Nazlı Pektaş, Murat Tabanlıoğlu, Deniz Odabaş, Mehmet Ali Güveli, and the sculptor Seyhun Topuz as a jury member, Seçkin Pirim and the Turkish Design Foundation.
Speaking at the opening of the work, in which 100 bells were used, dedicated to the 1923th anniversary of the founding of the Republic, Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy pointed out that they are targeting more than 50 million tourists this year, and said that more than 15 million of these visitors will be hosted in Istanbul.
Stating that approximately 10 million tourists will come to the city via Istanbul Airport, Ersoy said, “15 million tourists will also disperse to other parts of Europe and the world via IGA without entering. In other words, 25 million tourists set foot in İGA, somehow contact here and leave our country. If we include Turkish citizens, we see that an average of 300 thousand people a day come into contact with this airport in some way, when you take into account the personnel who visit the country and abroad and work here, that is, the personnel who come here to meet their daily needs.” said.
Minister Ersoy drew attention to the fact that they aim to provide citizens with easy access to culture and art with the Turkish Culture Road Festivals and continued as follows:
“I find this project very valuable in terms of overlapping our visions. There are such art activities in the public sphere, activities that facilitate the access of our citizens to culture and art, and a few special data of this event. The most important thing is that young artists like Betül are given the opportunity to develop them. Our investments in culture and art are very, very important. I always say that culture and art complement each other with tourism. You distinguish yourself from competing tourism countries with your values in culture and art. When you support culture and art, you automatically find the chance to bring more qualified tourists to your country. This is one of our visions at the Beyoğlu Culture Road Festival, and when we look at this point of view, İGA's principles and its investments in culture and art are very much in line. I congratulate them and express my gratitude. In order to develop our culture and art economy, we need to support young arts and young culture first. We need to make it accepted that this is a great wealth.”
Stating that the competition gave importance to the themes reflecting the Anatolian culture, Ersoy said, “Anatolia is a very important mosaic. When you say rich in culture and art, it acts as a bridge. It is a meeting point for culture and artists from Asia, the Middle East, Far Asia, the West, Europe, and everywhere else. That's why it is very important for us to highlight the culture and art of Anatolia. I hope that cultural and artistic activities will spread to every corner of Istanbul and our country. We are already working on this by holding the Cultural Road Festivals in all our cities gradually.” made its assessment.
“It is the greatest work of art ever made”
İGA Istanbul Airport Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kadri Samsunlu underlined that they aim to bring people together not only with travel but also with culture and art, and said, “We are celebrating our fourth anniversary and we have passed 160 million passengers through this airport. At the same time, we are doing our part to make Turkish aviation a very different place in the world. In the past three years, we have been the busiest airport in Europe. We are very happy about that.” used the phrases.
Pointing out that they have also established the world's largest airport museum here, Samsunlu said, “We brought real artifacts from all museums in Turkey with the approval of our Minister, and today we are showing them to our passengers. The library project, which started at our airport, has now spread to all other airports in Turkey. You can give the book you bought from our airport to Ankara Airport. Thus, our own literature, our own novels and stories circulate.” he said.
Emphasizing that as IGA, they aim to open doors to young Turkish artists, Samsunlu said:
“Under the roof of İGART, we organize all cultural and artistic activities at this airport. Our sister Betül came first in the competition we held within the scope of IGART and her work 'Saya'nın Voice' was brought to life here today. I don't care. The pioneer of this idea is Mehmet Kalyoncu. He said, 'You are doing something, but the perspective of the manager who manages the airport can sometimes be narrow. Let's invite people from various institutions to our executive committee. If we can convince him, let's put our teacher Hüsamettin and create a separate culture and art center here with him.' and today we are taking the first step of that.”
Stating that 1923 bells produced in Manisa were used in the work “Saya'nın Sesi”, Samsunlu said, “This is the biggest work of art made in the open air on an area of 4 square meters. During the production phase of this, our brother Betül went to Manisa for a year, came and completed the production of the bells by installing the size and sound systems. This is a self-confidence project of Istanbul Airport. We have realized these projects by overcoming very big problems and very big problems.” said.
Kadri Samsunlu also informed that they will carry out 17 more projects on culture and arts at the airport in the coming years.
“This place means a few gifts for our country”
Chairman of the IGART Executive Board Prof. Dr. Hüsamettin Koçan congratulated Betül Kotil and said, “Actually, this place means a few gifts for our country. One is the youth, the second is an understanding that believes in and supports the absolute necessity of art in the public sphere, and an autonomous structure formed in parallel with it. I think the other one is the project of paving the way for hope in Turkey. Because there is such a general understanding. Certain corridors have been established. Others said, 'We can't get into it.' They also feel excluded by making an assumption that For this reason, we undertake the responsibility of paving the way for this closure in the field of culture and art and providing opportunities for everyone to represent and express themselves.” he said.
Expressing his satisfaction for being a part of the project, Koçan continued his words as follows:
“I have thought a lot about the society I live in throughout my life. I thought about the future and past savings. This is my life. Maybe such organizations represent a sustainable culture and art understanding and a future for our country. As a result of this competition, with the creative genius of dear Betül, this place has now become our sky. This sky brought us the pasture season, the Taurus Mountains, brought the craft. It brought to be one's own and to seek the era. He brought the meeting of tradition and age. In that respect, this project of ours has not only brought young people to the fore. It created hope and showed us how we can benefit from our own savings with a futuristic approach.”
“Saya was born from this geography”
Betül Kotil, the owner of the work “Saya'ın Sesi”, said that her work has a spirit and said, “This spirit is a relationship blended with both art and craft. Saya was born from this geography and took its place at the airport. He met the audience in a public space. I love the public space. Because it is a very transparent, natural and social space. Therefore, it engages in dialogue with a large number of viewers and contributes to the formation of a cultural memory. The relationship between work and space also supports each other. This relationship, too, is in our minds and memories as a non-distance and ordinary relationship.” made its assessment.
Kotil also talked about the experiences he had while preparing the work, and conveyed his thanks to the team of about 100 people who took part in the background and contributed.
M. İlker Haktankaçmaz, Administrative Officer of Istanbul Airport, also made a speech in the program.
After the opening speeches, Minister Ersoy made inspections at the airport subway, which is still in progress, and received information from the authorities.
221 projects participated in the first of the IGART Art Projects Contests series, which aims to bring together the cultural memory of Anatolia with the identity of Istanbul blended with culture and art, with different cultures.
"The Voice of Saya", which won the first place in the 1 million lira prize competition, the largest amount awarded in Turkey to date, meets its visitors under the viaduct in the IGA Istanbul Airport metro exit area.
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