Borusan Contemporary opens summer season
Hatice Utkan ISTANBUL
Borusan Contemporary Director Güzin Tezcanlı says they have launched workshops throughout the year to reach young audiences.
Since its opening, Borusan Contemporary Museum has been known to be an unorthodox art museum, an “office museum.” It is typically an office during the weekdays and turns into a museum during the weekend. However, little did anyone know about its rich art education programs, digital applications and its power to bring art to the audience and children.Speaking about the museum and its new programs, Güzin Tezcanlı said the museum’s first aim is to open a new dimension in the Turkish art scene by supporting new media art. “Since the opening, we have always aimed to come to the fore with new media art and a new exhibition of the museum, which is a collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the exhibition titled ‘West Coast Visions.’”
The exhibition gathers artists from the SFMOMA Media Arts Collection and is curated by Rudolf Frieling, curator of media arts at the SFMOMA for the Borusan Contemporary museum in Istanbul.
According to Tezcanlı, not only supporting new media art is an important task, but also developing the audience, digital applications and social media is a big step for the museum.
The museum has a communication strategy as its own and opens a new horizon in terms of online museum communication. While the museum’s mobile application allows everyone to reach the museum from smart phones and gadgets, the museum aims to reach more people through these applications. Tezcanlı said it is possible to attract more of an audience with digital applications and will be launching more applications in the future.
Güzin Tezcanlı
Another route to develop its audience is social media, utilizing an expert on social media. This expert shares important information on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media channels.
However, the director knows social media alone is not enough to reach the audience these days. “That’s why we have launched workshops for the summer and during the year.”
The workshops are a way to reach young people, according to Tezcanlı. She gives great importance to children’s workshops. Tezcanlı thinks it is important to educate children in terms of art. Borusan Contemporary’s education part is rich and includes digital photography education, understanding contemporary art and also children’s workshops, which provide an educational program that takes the artworks exhibited at the museum as a reference point. This program will be providing entertaining and educational workshops, helping children to get to know more about contemporary art. Tezcanlı said Borusan workshops are conducted under the management of Gazi Selçuk, a well-established name in the field of art education and the director of numerous large scale art education projects, as well as with the assistance of the artist İlke Yılmaz.
The museum offers a syllabus for schools and offers education programs for art teachers.