KIRKAYAK KÜLTÜR Started as a culture arts initiative in 2007 by a group of academics, lawyers, doctors and journalists from Gaziantep, Kırkayak Kültür was established as a non-profit NGO in 2011 as Kırkayak Culture Art and Nature Association Kırkayak Kültür works with disadvantaged groups, refugees and migrants in order to contribute to social cohesion and culture of coexistence. Kirkayak's actions are designed to increase social development, to promote democratic values and to create the conditions of a culturally rich life. While following this mission, Kırkayak Kültür aims to improve and extend the cooperation between the artisans, culture-arts activists and non-governmental organizations in Turkey, the Middle East and Europe. Accordingly, it cooperates with artisans, non-governmental organizations, municipalities and local initiatives. Kırkayak Kültür's programs are in the fields of Culture & Arts, Gender Equality, Media, Migration and Refugees and Dom Research with a social development-oriented, participatory and multi-voice approach. A vital component of Gaziantep’s cultural and intellectual life, Kırkayak Kültür hosts its actions in two separate locations in Gaziantep: “Kırkayak Kültür – Art Center” and “Kırkayak Kültür – Center for Migration and Cultural Studies”. Kırkayak believes that sharing art and cultural space increases mutual understanding and sensitivities and helps to overcome cultural differences and prejudices. Culture and Arts Program Kırkayak Kültür carries out cultural art programs with the idea that the revival of cultural life and urban belonging will lead to the development of modern citizenship in Anatolian cities with rich cultural heritage. It believes that urban development shaped by culture, artistic relations and social cohesion is important not only for Turkey but its integration to the world. It advocates that the independent cultural spaces created with the Art Center are important areas of encounter as voluntarily involved and supported by the unifying power of art. It empowers a neighbor culture with a cultural equality perspective. Kırkayak Art Center works together with artists from Syria, and organizes activities and exhibitions to get their works reach to both communities and get the artists from both countries together with artists and art-lovers in national and worldwide platforms. In this context, Kırkayak Art Center organizes film festivals, movie screenings, photograph and painting exhibitions, theatre performances and various culture-art activities and offers artists “an open space”. It endeavors to make create a space for the subject in the public sphere with a rights-based and egalitarian perspective. It values the production of testimonies and supports the solidarity practices created by joint production and sharing. The Art Center cooperates with local, national and international non-governmental organizations and art initiatives, as well as local and public institutions. It believes that permanent transformations can be achieved by involving different partners in the process. Migrants and Refugees Program Following the wave of migrants and refugees from Syria to Gaziantep and neighbouring cities, since its establishment Kırkayak’s priority has been to help people of Syria and Turkey living together in harmony. Inspired from “right to asylum is a human right” upon the philosophical works ranging from Kant to Derrida under the theme of radical hospitality, Kırkayak Kültür organizes right-based Works with Migrants and Refugees to support the learning process of people from Syria and Turkey on how to live together, and conducts “social cohesion” oriented activities. These right based actions are programmed under the theme of (?) Works with Migrants and Refugees. In Works with Migrants and Refugees Kırkayak Kültür; aims to support the learning process of people from Syria and Turkey how to live together, and conducts “social cohesion” oriented activities. This program aims to straighten the thighs between academy and the field by organizing training sessions, collaboration with different partners such as GAR Academy, Wilfrid Laurier University (Feyzi Baban and Kim Rygiel). Kırkayak Kültür takes place in international platforms, being aware that migration has both local and international effects. It is the Turkey representative of CCRM (Cross-Regional Center for Refugees and Migrants Network), which brings together 20 institutions that work for the access to rights and social cohesion of migrants from the Middle East and Asian countries. Another vital component of the Works with Migrants and Refugees is research based actions aiming to increase the knowledge sharing among the scholars, researchers, activists on the issues relating to refugee and migrant studies. Mutfak|| Matbakh Program Mutfak || Matbakh Workshop is a collective space where life practices are acquired by women from local and refugee communities. It was founded in 2015 as a result of meetings with activists, academics, NGO workers, women from refugee and local communities living in Gaziantep to create a mutual living space for all. The kitchen is considered as the place of production and within the workshop; cooking workshops, arts and culture activities, academic researches, workshops and panels are carried out. The workshop is based on the practices of living together. Through the cooking workshops in the Mutfak || Matbakh named Mutfak Na (Our Kitchen), where mutual prejudices are being overcome and cultures are exchanged through women from local and refugee communities coming together to cook dishes of Syrian and Turkish cuisine and experience the city by taking part in the public spaces and museums. Three different workshops held with the participation of field workers, academicians and participants from Gaziantep and the neighbor cities under the titles of Labor, Art and Space where migration and gender considered under the titles. Other projects implemented under the program; an art workshop and exhibition titled Women Solidarity for Art, a report and a video-series about the difficulties and changes that migrant women have experienced in working life during the pandemic titled ‘’The Voice of the Subject: Migrant Women’s Labor During the Pandemic Period’’, a video-art project screened within the scope of the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial titled Golden Water: Olive and Olive Oil Landscapes. Mutfak || Matbakh Workshop continues to work for the development of the culture of life with the solidarity it has established with all these works. Dom Research Program The association runs culture and arts workshops in neighborhoods with Dom populations -one of the three communities forming the Gypsy population in the world- to support the education and school attendance of children in Turkey. Researchers at the association have been conducting academic and non-academic researchers, field visits and a mapping study on such needs of Dom groups in the Middle East. Currently, they are carrying a study on the living conditions and problems of Syrian Dom communities in Jordan and Lebanon, together with possible solutions. Kırkayak Kültür has been actively informing NGOs and public institutions, and accelerating bureaucratic procedures and processes in order to secure the necessary permits for the tent sites established by the Dom groups in the region and to establish a network among local and international organizations supporting the rights of Dom communities. Under this program, Kırkayak Kültür implemented a protection project for Dom communities to access their rights through involvement of registration process as well as published reports for their access to basic human rights; The Dom: The Other Asylum Seekers from Syria Report, Encouraging Integration and Social Cohesion of Syrian Dom Immigrants Proposal for a Regional Social Inclusion Strategy Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, “Being educated is a distant dream to us.” Dom and Abdal Children’s Education in Turkey: The Cases of Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa.
