Unlimited Forum, a festival for all to be held in Istanbul

ISTANBUL

The British Council in Türkiye is organizing the inclusive arts festival Unlimited Forum with the motto “arts for all” between Feb. 2 and 4 in Istanbul.

While showcasing works by disabled artists, cultural professionals and art institutions from Türkiye, the U.K. and Europe, the festival also aims to improve the mindsets of arts and culture professionals about accessibility and inclusion to create a wider impact on the perception of arts in society.

The program of the three-day festival, to be held at Yapı Kredi bomontiada and its vicinity, ranges from new performances and panels with local and international speakers to workshops and concerts.
The event will start on Feb. 2 at Babylon Istanbul with a speech by artist, writer, and activist Jess Thom, co-artistic director of Touretteshero, founded in 2010.

It will be followed by the world premiere of “Urgent!” by the Arada Company team, bringing together interdisciplinary experiences. In this performance, choreographer Serkan Bozkurt and the Arada Company team, mostly comprised of early career disabled artists, focus their discourse on the social exclusion experiences of disabled people and their reflection on our daily communication practices.

The performance, in which the actors and dancers will share their obstacles, successes, disappointments and goals with the audience, was specially designed for the Unlimited Forum and will meet the audience for the first time.

The second day of the festival on Feb. 3 at Yapıkredi Bomontiada will host panels where participants will reflect on the relationship between accessibility and art.

Unlimited Forum will present two different workshops according to the interests of participants as on Feb. 4.

The workshop “Dance with Different Bodies – The Other Body” will propose kinaesthetic experimental approaches that center on the body as a ‘bridge’ in different contexts.

Another workshop titled “Accessible Lines - From Illustration to Visual Description: An Experiment,” developed and organized by disabled illustrator, comics artist and designer Hatiye Garip, aims to make the work of students and illustrators accessible for blind and visually impaired people through inclusive design and audio description.

The festival will be free of charge, and all events will include English-Turkish simultaneous translation, Turkish sign language interpretation and Turkish live captioning. Performances will have live audio descriptions.