An expedition of over 30 people. SEAS artists and a small technical and management team from all over Europe, traveled by road from Istanbul to Batumi. Along the way shorter stops were planned to spontaneously interchange with local people and community groups. Animations - films, workshops, short presentations - were the tools of encounter. SEAS X began with a laboratory on the road, the SEAS Xpedition, and finalized in Georgia with the four day arts festival SEAS X Batumi. The first SEAS presence in Turkey was the ten day festival SEAS Istanbul 2009, a collaboration between Black/North SEAS/Intercult and Istanbul 2010.
SOM engaged in the local coordination of the SEAS X Turkey project. Selen Akçalı from SOM was appointed as the Turkish Local Coordinator by the project producer Intercult. Intercult is an Stocholm based foundation operating in the field of art and culture for 15 years.
Chris Torch, artistic director, Black/North SEAS and Intercult: “The focus for SEAS X in 2010 is a crystallizing of experiences from the first three years of the project. We are increasing our mobility and reducing to a smaller group of artists and technicians, entering into - for us - unexplored cultural territory. SEAS Xpedition is about mutual learning. We come with both finished works and art in process, looking for encounters in cities that are improvising the future. Coastal towns along the Black Sea share a present and future where tourism and sustainability are the biggest challenges. How to develop and yet maintain traditions in a contemporary context?”
SEAS Xpedition stops in Turkey
Starting in Istanbul the Xpedition travelled along the Black Sea coast with a final stop in Batumi, Georgia. The stops of the expedition in Turkey were as follows: Akçakoca, Ünye, Çamlıhemşin and Hopa.
Background
Black/North SEAS is an ongoing investigation of how artistic initiatives can lift urban re-invention and environmental issues to the forefront, by presenting contemporary art in the public spaces of coastal places. SEAS is a process of meeting and co-creation between artists from the borderlands of Europe. Artists are paired on “blind dates” in a town or city on the seacoast. After their “dates” the artists propose a new piece of art inspired by their time together and the place they visited. The project has generated 18 new art productions and an extensive tour around the Black and North Seas in 2008 and 2009. In 2010, SEAS went to Scotland, Turkey, Georgia and finally to Stockholm. Read more on www.seas.se
Black/North SEAS is an initiative of Intercult, Sweden and is funded by the EU Culture Programme.
