Turkey to join World Art Games in Croatia

İZMİR - Anadolu Agency

Turkey will be represented by a team of eight people at the World Arts Games being held in Croatia, and in addition to competing the representatives will offer Izmir to host the next edition of the ceremony in 2015.

The World Art Games (WAG), the first arts Olympics in the world, will be held in Croatia through June 29 to July 10. Turkey will be represented with a team of eight people in the festival which 500 artists from different countries will attend. The festival will be held in different cities of Croatia such as Ludbreg, Vukovar, Umag, Osijek and Zagreb.

Painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, literature, ballet, opera, music, television, film, street arts, architecture, fashion design and kitchen arts are the 15 categories that every country will be performing in, with their own arts and culture event. The Turkish team will try to persuade the organization committee to hold the second edition of the festival,which is planned to be held in 2015, in İzmir.

Ceramic artists, Tüzüm Kızılcan and Serkan Gönenç, glass artists Gülin Algül, Tülin Yiğit Akgül, painters Derya Var, Emel Atalay and Zeynep Köstepen and film artist Dilara Var are the artists attending the festival from Turkey. The artists will be sharing the contemporary versions of Turkish traditional arts with the foreign guests of the Olympics.

Turkish national team on stage

The Turkish national team under the direction of Derya Var, who is visiting the Croatia-İzmir honorary counsel Candan Çorbacıoğlu and Turkish Ambassador of Zagreb Burak Özügergin will head the campaign to hold the next edition of the festival in İzmir.

Derya Var stated that the Konak Municipality had supported them completely. She added that İzmir had a great potential to host this kind of an event.

The “WAG International İzmir Conference,” one of the important introductory events of the World Art Games, was held in İzmir last September. The event was organized by the World Art Games Foundation National Turkey Committee. Sixty WAG National Committee attorneys attended the meeting from such different continents as Asia, Europe and Africa and they shared ideas about the financing of the arts and culture events that will be held in 2013. The events are supported by Ministry of Culture and Tourism.