The Hayy Open School program content is subject to change.
Curated by: Saliha Yavuz
Open Schools, Open Questions
Instructor: Betül Aksu
This course invites participants to collectively reflect on alternative learning and organizing models that have emerged in the fields of art and culture through the idea of the “open school.” Open schools are approached as practices of collective thinking and co-production.
The course is shaped around the following questions: From which needs do open schools emerge? How do processes of fundraising, sustainability, and curriculum-building operate? How can the production and transmission of knowledge be rethought through horizontal learning models and different relationships with hierarchy?
Drawing on examples from radical pedagogy and alternative learning programs that artist Betül Aksu has been part of, the course shares observations on how these experiences transform artistic and intellectual practice. A comparative reading is conducted through alternative learning models from different geographies. Participants are invited to rethink the idea of the open school through their own practices and areas of interest.
Being Yourself in the Cultural Field: Who Is Inside?
Instructor: Tuba İmik
Designed through the synthesis of knowledge and experiences from diverse fields—such as modern psychology, ancient teachings, artistic sharing methods, and New Age practices—this course offers a holistic approach to topics examined in the light of both contemporary and traditional teachings.
The Body and Communication in Self-Representation
Instructor: Fatih Gençkal
These meetings, which include studies on the body and expression as tools of self-expression for cultural workers and especially artists, promise greater expressive ease for creative minds.
Actors, Relationships, and Actions in the Cultural Field
Instructor: Saliha Yavuz
A two-session seminar focusing on artists and other actors in the field, their relationships, institutions, documents, and rights.
Collecting, Collection Management, and Artist–Collector Relations
Instructor: Ebru Nalan Sülün
Focusing on the formation of an art collection, its processes and needs, collection management, and artist–collector relations, this seminar presents issues of mutual rights, communication methods, and related documentation.
Alternative Modes of Existence in the Cultural Field
Instructor: Saliha Yavuz
An exploration of alternative modes of existence in the visual arts field in Turkey, and the history of collective action and change developing in parallel with social movements.
Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Programs
Instructor: Saliha Yavuz
This session covers what artist-in-residence programs are, their types, research methods, application documents, and key tips.
Project Writing and Fund Research / Applications
Instructors: Saliha Yavuz & Fatih Gençkal
This seminar shares fundamental information on how to prepare a project file (basic principles, budget, timeline), and how to research and apply for funding programs in Turkey and Europe.
Portfolio and Other Artist Documents
Instructor: Saliha Yavuz
A seminar on essential artist documents such as project grant applications, general portfolios, and artist statements, offering recommendations through key points, basic information, and methods of visual presentation with examples.
The Anatomy of an Exhibition
Instructors: Sevim Sancaktar, Saliha Yavuz
A three-session seminar covering all stages of an exhibition—from the idea phase to implementation, installation, communication, sponsorships, project management, installation photography, and publication preparation.
Meeting, Settling / On Curatorial Practice
Instructors: Merve Elveren, Meriç Öner
How do exhibitions come into being? Does the physical juxtaposition of various works, objects, periods, and approaches within an exhibition truly mean that they meet on common ground? Do the components of an exhibition propose a coherent unity? Is an exhibition a space of negotiation for everyone who produces and sustains it? Are there rights, wrongs, methods, or rules to these temporary environments where people and ideas intersect, and objects, narratives, and contexts are placed?
Previously held within the scope of “Var Yok” at YUNT and now presented in a new version at Hayy Open School, the Meeting, Settling workshop aims to address curatorial practices from various perspectives and to rethink collective working methods through these questions.
Art Packaging and Transportation
Instructors: Saliha Yavuz & Asya Nakliyat
The intricacies, materials, and examples of packaging paintings, sculptures, or three-dimensional works are demonstrated practically with the support of Asya Nakliyat. The workshop also offers suggestions on material reuse, energy and material efficiency, and ecological methods.
Making Books with Art Galleries, Museums, and Artists
Instructors: Umut Altıntaş & Süreyya Evren
In this three-session seminar series, the process by which a graphic designer manages the production of an art-related book in collaboration with galleries, museums, or artists is discussed. “Making” a book involves selecting contributors (editor, translator, proofreader, photographer, printer, publisher, etc.), preparing written and visual content, conceptualizing the design method and context, implementing the design, and managing communication and budget throughout the process.
The seminar conveys this process through case studies (four or more different publications), analysis, and verification. In one session, joined by writer and editor Süreyya Evren, the same process will also be examined from an editor’s perspective.
Editorial Book Design
Instructors: Umut Altıntaş & Esen Karol
Within this seminar and workshop, focusing on formats such as art books, artist books, and photobooks, participants will explore, discuss, and practice the graphic designer’s methods, interaction with content, and editorial approach in conveying artistic material through the book format.
In the second, online session, designer Esen Karol will present her work within this context.
Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Art
Instructors: Banu Karaca, Asena Günal (Siyah Bant)
With the founders and writers of Susma Platformu and Siyah Bant, this session addresses censorship in the cultural field in Turkey, discussing freedom of expression and rights in art through examples and possibilities.
Organizing in the Cultural Field
Instructors: Buradan Nereye?
Through a presentation on organizing models of artists and cultural workers from Turkey and around the world, this session opens discussion on the past and present of organizing in Turkey, models that function or fail during times of crisis, needs, and proposed solutions.
A Holistic to In-Depth Look at Color
Instructor: Gizem Hız
In this two-session course, Gizem Hız presents a comprehensive exploration of how we read color through both subjective and universal modes of thought.
The first session, Physiological and Psychological Readings on Color, examines the meanings colors have acquired through the theories of influential physicists, chemists, geologists, and theorists, alongside the historical development of pigments.
The second session, Reading Color through Art and Design Works, opens a space for discussion and analysis on how colors are interpreted through the works of artists and designers.
Printmaking Techniques
Instructors: Emre Yıldız & Atakan Tuna (Kazı Print Studio)
Designed as a two-part workshop conducted in collaboration with Kazı Print Studio and academician Emre Yıldız, this printmaking workshop consists of simultaneous sessions.
Alongside relief and intaglio print workshops, participants will produce single creative images or multi-page mini publications using various relief and monotype techniques. Planned techniques include woodcut, letterpress, linocut, collagraphy, monotype, and stencil printing, with both monochrome and multicolor outputs.
New Media & Generative Art
Instructors: Ege Canpolat, Candaş Şişman & Daniele Savasta
This four-session seminar series focuses on new media art and contemporary art practices, aiming to offer participants both conceptual development and production-oriented experiences. The sessions address perceptions of new media, theoretical frameworks, and current debates.
Supported by workshops using digital and interactive technologies, participants will have the opportunity to develop their own creative projects. This process—from concept to production—will explore how modes of thinking can be transformed through new media, encouraging participants to discover new production pathways through creative inquiry and experimental practice.
Upcycling & Movement & Sound & Sculpture
Instructors: Pınar Akkurt & Serkan Aka
A workshop that offers both a theoretical introduction to upcycling and hands-on outdoor practice, aiming to develop a different perspective on sculpture and material, and to provide alternative methods and techniques for participants without a sculpture background.
Experimental Comics and Plastic Arts
Instructor: Ali Çetinkaya
In the first, theoretical phase of the course, the fundamental narrative language of comics is introduced through the theories of McCloud and Groensteen. This language is then discussed through various examples in relation to media within the field of plastic arts.
At the end of this phase, participants are asked to apply this reading to their own fields and to create a work or sketch by the next session. In the second session, participants’ projects are examined through the theoretical frameworks discussed earlier.
Photography as an Attitude
Instructor: Toros Mutlu
This two-session seminar and workshop approaches photography beyond technical boundaries, as a mode of thinking and expression.
The first session discusses photography’s transformation within art history, its relationship with painting, modes of representation, and its place in visual culture.
In the second session, participants explore their own visual languages through exercises aimed at noticing the extraordinary within the ordinary. This workshop seeks ways of approaching photography not merely as a tool, but as an attitude.
Expressing Yourself through Writing / Writing Practice in Art
Instructor: Yaratım Atölyeleri, Monica Papi
A two-part seminar focusing on curatorial texts, artwork texts, critical texts for publications, and the concept of text as the artwork itself.
New Thinking Practices: Missing Piece vs. Excess Piece
(Reconstructing a Dispersed Process)
Instructor: Borga Kantürk
This course is, in a sense, about rethinking upcycling, collectivity, and the search for interlocutors. It aims for collective production by shedding both the material and emotional burdens of fragments we have carried alone, within micro-communities, or unsuccessfully together, and by reactivating them within a new system.
The goal is to establish main frameworks in order to build a system methodology. A gathering is envisioned to connect systems and to initiate theoretical, practical, physical, and structural forms of organization. With the aim of shaking off despair, this meeting seeks to relocate, open up, share, and reunite under a new framework the mental and physical weight of disappointments we have boxed away.
The main objective is to plan open production spaces, archive areas, and digital or physical interlocutory modules for art producers, art students, and engaged audiences in İzmir, and to map out roadmaps for these structures.
New Thinking Practices
Instructor: Metehan Özcan
In addition to academic modes of thinking, an applied plan is proposed to develop new ways of thinking through reading, watching, experimenting, trial and error, and non-academic urban practices.
Shall We Meet? Portfolio Days
Once a month throughout the year, professionals and artists from İzmir and beyond will share their experiences with early-career artists. These days provide opportunities for portfolio or project presentations and exchanges of ideas.
For participation and further information, please fill out the form:
https://forms.gle/9wdcFWsRGGL4UWJg6