By Heidi Trautmann

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day 2017 the third International Women Artists Workshop was held in Kyrenia at its Public Library, just as in the years before. I have visited all of them and thus met with women artists from around the world. In the reviews of those events I expressed my thoughts about the importance of these meetings and my view has not changed, on the contrary.

http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=7842221385#.WMJeQVV96Uk

http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=4548243161#.WMJfUlV96Uk

More and more the cooperation of women worldwide is regarded as essential for peace building measures and the net is getting more finely spun by opening more and more art and interactive workshops around the world.

Ipek Denizli Karagöz, participating artist and also curator of the last two meetings, has again organized the present one in cooperation with the Cultural Ministry of North Cyprus and in cooperation with Kyrenia Municipality, and with a newly established cooperation of the Association of Interactive Drama.

Quite a rainbow of creative activities this year and I am sure it took some months to get all the preparations done.  A press conference preceding the workshop was held at the Anadolu Hotel in Kyrenia where the artists were also staying. We had the occasion to meet them and learn about their background. The conference was presided over by the Minister of Education and Culture, Özdemir Berova, by the Mayor of Kyrenia Nidai Güngördü, the Director of the Cultural Department, Nilay Tunçalp, and by Ayşem Tomgüsehan , President of the Association for Interactive Drama.

The artists participating in the workshop for ten days in North Cyprus were Biliana Pavlova Bachvarova from Bulgaria, Delphine Manet and Pascale Nesson from France, Arbana Hajredinaj from Kosovo, Melek Günbey Güler, Seran Tepeoğlu and Yurdagül Işıl from Turkey; the artists from the TRNC were Mümine Özdemirağ Yağlı, Sevcan Çerkez, Zühre Özkaraman, İpek Denizli Karagöz and Bedia Kale. As disciplines we had this time not only painting but also ceramic art and ….performance art, performing, as I could witness with a group of children exercising group understanding and leadership, the kids also did some other work together with the artists such as painting and ceramic sculpting – interactive. It is a fact that artists often follow various creative roads because they are sensitized and prepared to turn towards other disciplines.  On the garden walls of the Kyrenia Public Library the artists left a painted souvenir for everybody to come and see.  Local artists and cultural officials went and visited the workshop to greet the artists, Derman Atik, the Cultural Director of the Kyrenia Municipality and Director of the Catalköy Theatre, the artist, writer, musician and caricaturist Dr. Arif Ali Albayrak who recently published a new autobiographical book ‘Albayrak Art 60 Yil (Years)’, at least to mention those I personally met there.

On March 10 we could all see the outcome of the artists’ work at the Ismet Güney Art Centre in Nicosia and here Ipek Denizli Karagöz undertook the long job to thank all those who participated not only as artists but also those who had helped in organizing it. You could feel that the group of 12 artists had a great week, full of inspiration and comradeship, they worked long hours and also had a little time left for some excursions around the island. They promised each other that they would meet at one or the other international events who knows where.