Istanbul opens door to world as the city of love

ISTANBUL

Unlike classical Valentine’s Day celebrations, the alternative love festival launches February as the “Month of Love” and brings together all lovers in Istanbul.

An extraordinary festival, called “The Eternal Taste of Love,” will be celebrated for the fifth time in February. Curated by Işık Gençoğlu, the festival will bring its audience together with works of art and events that have the quality of being worn, repeated, enjoyed and watched. For the whole length of February the works of artists and designers who are determined to be the spokespeople for love will be exhibited in various venues.

This year’s the festival theme is “Love Nourishes,” and it will take place in Istanbul venues including Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah, addresistanbul and The Hall Istanbul.

Also as part of the festival, Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah and the Glass Furnace, which has been giving workshops to promote the art of glass in its 20,000-square-meter venue since 2001, have joined together for the festival. In an exhibition that opened Feb. 4 at the hotel within the festival, Istanbul-themed works from world-famous glass artists’ collections and selected works by Turkish jewelry designers will be displayed.

Unlike classical Valentine’s Day celebrations, the festival launches February as the “Month of Love” and aims to bring together all lovers in Istanbul. The festival can be described as an unusual one because there will be no event on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, and no heart-shaped figures are used in the festival.

Goal is to become international
“In my opinion, Istanbul is the most beautiful city of love in the world. Since the beginning of human history, love is the only feeling that is free from status, age, race, language and sex. Because we think that love is imposed on one day only, Feb. 14, we excluded this date from the festival. Our main goal is to show the whole world that ‘The Eternal Taste of Love’ will be in Istanbul this month. We want to make this event an international one,” said Gençoğlu.

Pınar Kartal Timer, the general director of Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah, said they considered the history and concept of the hotel when choosing artworks to be displayed as part of the event. “We believe that the collection pieces of the Glass Furnace will draw great interest,” she said.

Venues of the festival
Another venue of the festival is addressistanbul. More than 60 national and international artists will display selected works as well as cultural tours and discussions. As part of the festival, which launches Feb. 13, there will also be a big party at The Hall Istanbul. Photography artist Nihat Odabaşı will have a DJ performance at the event.

Works by the internationally known ceramic artist Carol Gouthro and the modern representative Jeff Crandall will be displayed in Istanbul for the first time at the festival.

Altan Sungar, Ayşe Ünaydın, Canan Alimdar, Çağla Tanyolaç, Hakan Kürklü, Hande Bilten, Elhan Ergin, Elif Ağatekin, Gülay Alpay, Mutlu Başkaya, Müge Göğüş, Nelli Gavriyeloğlu, Nihal Gündüz, Oktay Anılanmert, Özcan Yaman, Selda Okutan, Sezgin Sander, Tülin Yiğit Akgül, Yılmaz Zenger and Zehra Çobanlı are among the other Turkish artists whose works will be displayed.