Contemporary Art in Türkiye in 2026: The Mardin Biennial and Contemporary Istanbul

[TURKIYE]

Contemporary Art in Türkiye in 2026: The Mardin Biennial and Contemporary Istanbul

From exhibitions spread between the old city, Dara and Kızıltepe to gallery booths at Tersane Istanbul, two events reveal different ways of presenting art and connecting it with places and audiences.

Bringing the Mardin Biennial and Contemporary Istanbul together in one article may initially seem an unusual choice. One ran for several weeks in spring; the other occupied a few days in September. Each had its own organisation and approach to presenting work. Yet setting them alongside one another illuminates an important aspect of Türkiye’s cultural scene in 2026: how contemporary art reaches people, who chooses the context in which it is shown, and what changes when it enters a gallery, a heritage site or a space used in everyday life.

In Mardin, the seventh biennial took place from 15 May to 21 June, curated by Çelenk Bafra under the title SKYground (GÖKzemin), bringing together sky and earth. In Istanbul, the 21st Contemporary Istanbul ran at Tersane Istanbul on 23–27 September, with a preview on the first day, as announced by Dirimart. Both events have ended. Comparing their presentations reveals how art’s relationship with its setting and intended audience can change.

Sevda Şener Stage at the Gazhane cultural complex in Kadıköy, Istanbul. Archive photograph, included for illustration.

The Two Events at a Glance

Comparison	Seventh Mardin Biennial	Contemporary Istanbul 2026
Dates	15 May–21 June 2026	23–27 September 2026
Location	Six venues in and around Mardin	Tersane Istanbul
Approach to presenting work	The curatorial framework SKYground, connecting sky and earth, with exhibitions and works related to their setting	Gallery presentations, including booths by Dirimart and Zilberman
Notable feature	The edition extended to sites beyond the old city	Dirimart showed work by artists of different generations across several media
Status	Ended	The fair has ended

The table helps identify the experience each event offered and compare how its presentations were organised and reached. The number of weeks can affect the opportunity to return to an exhibition. The spread of venues can change the relationship between viewing art and exploring a city, while bringing booths together in one place allows visitors to compare several organisations’ choices within a single, compact visit.

Mardin: Sky and Earth as a Framework for Viewing Art

The biennial began with an opening programme at Sakıp Sabancı Mardin City Museum on 15 May. It was hosted by the Mardin Cinema Association, directed by Döne Otyam and Hakan Irmak, and curated by Çelenk Bafra. The title SKYground brought together two apparently distant poles, connecting the presentation with relationships between reality and imagination, the material and the intangible, and the past and the future.

The title can be understood as a framework proposed by the organisers to connect different works and experiences, while allowing each work to retain its own language and detail. Viewers might ask where a real place appears in a work and where possibility or imagination begins. Does the artist evoke personal memory or collective memory? An overarching title opens up these questions, but each work still needs its own language and detail.

The meeting of sky and earth can also be read as an invitation to move between looking towards the horizon and attending to what lies underfoot. This offers several ways to understand the title and the chosen venues, depending on the viewer’s relationship with the place and the materials on display. An art student may find a meaning in a work’s material that differs from what someone familiar with the site through everyday life sees in it. Both are legitimate ways of approaching the work.

This edition’s curatorial choices had a particular professional context. Çelenk Bafra, artistic director of Istanbul Modern, began her connection with Mardin through a research visit with curators and artists in 2005. That relationship continued through projects and writing about the biennial. This history shows that the framework grew out of a practice involving research and the organisation of art, and that her connection with the city developed over years and across projects.

It is useful here to distinguish between the artist, the curator and the event director. The artist presents the work; the curator develops proposed relationships between works and their exhibition context; and delivering the event requires management and organisation. These roles overlap during the process, while each has a particular part in shaping and presenting the experience. When reading cultural news, understanding those roles is more useful than repeating names without explaining their responsibilities.

A curatorial framework also leaves viewers free to form their own opinions. They may see something in a work that goes beyond the edition’s title or question how clearly the work relates to its setting. Such discussion differs from a passing judgement because it begins with details that can be described: material, image, sound, arrangement and the distance between works. A famous name or striking building alone cannot explain what happened within the exhibition.

Six Venues Made the City Part of the Exhibition

The venues included Sakıp Sabancı Mardin City Museum, Deyrulzafaran Monastery, Dara Ancient City, Kervansaray, Marangozlar Kahvesi (the Carpenters’ Café) and Ateş Beyler Hamamı in Kızıltepe. This map shows the variety of settings used, from a museum building to an archaeological site and places carrying memories of everyday use.

Extending beyond the old city was a feature of the 2026 edition highlighted in the opening statement. Its significance lies in the way the event moved beyond using the name “Mardin” as an attractive backdrop. The distribution of exhibitions itself became part of the relationship the event created between place, work and visitor. It offers a way to consider art through its relationship with the site chosen to present it and what that site adds to the experience of viewing.

One can infer an important difference between a relatively neutral space that visitors enter to see an exhibition and a place with a prior use and memory. Work shown in a café or former bathhouse enters a context that some people know outside art. Viewing questions become more specific: has the work offered another way to see the place? Does it depend on the space and its materials, or could it be moved without losing its essential relationship? The answers need not be the same at all six venues.

Viewing these sites involves two connected layers: what the work presents and what the place evokes. One can describe how a building’s materials, space and history affect the exhibition’s arrangement, then observe how the work opens a new question within it. Such detail makes the relationship between art and architecture clearer and easier to discuss.

Behind the Exhibition: Artist Fees and New Production

One detail worth considering is SAHA’s support for participating artists’ fees, alongside support for new works by Alper Aydın, Mehmet Ali Boran, Erinç Seymen, Hilal Can, Zahit Mungan and Rozelin Akgün. It shows that participation involved more than bringing finished works to hang in different venues.

Distinguishing between fees and production support helps explain cultural work. Fees relate to the artist’s participation and labour; production support concerns the means to realise a new work. No comprehensive budget is available here to calculate the biennial’s cost or compare artists’ circumstances. The existence of support therefore cannot be turned into a financial estimate or a claim that everyone worked under identical conditions.

These facts nevertheless allow a wider reading: the work eventually seen by visitors is preceded by time, materials, experimentation and organisation. When a work’s relationship with its location is part of the exhibition, that preparation can become part of its creation, rather than an incidental service. Discussing support in this way helps readers understand how an exhibition is made and avoids reducing it to an opening ceremony and photographs of visitors.

Attendance Figures: Distinguishing Exhibitions from Heritage Sites

In their closing statement, the organisers reported the participation of 42 artists and collectives from 20 countries, and 245,000 visitors to exhibitions at the six venues. They also stated that heritage sites including Dara and Deyrulzafaran received approximately 1.5 million visitors during the biennial, who had an opportunity to encounter its works.

The figures describe different populations. They cannot be added together as separate audiences, nor can a heritage-site visit be equated with a planned visit to an art exhibition. The statement also provides no detailed methodology establishing that every recorded visit represents a unique person who was not counted at another venue. Attributing the figures to the organisers is therefore more accurate than treating them as a comprehensive measure of contemporary art’s reach across Türkiye.

This distinction matters because large figures can obscure the kind of encounter that took place. Briefly seeing a work during an archaeological visit, attending a workshop and returning to discuss an exhibition are different experiences. One does not diminish the value of another, but assessing them requires different indicators. Attendance describes one aspect of reach; it cannot, by itself, reveal the depth of engagement.

The closing programme at Dara included kites, readings connected with birds, conversations about the biennial and music, bringing together writers, artists, musicians, archaeologists, the event team and visitors. These details show that the edition ended with more than an announcement of figures: its curatorial theme also informed the closing gathering.

Old houses and the cultural centre in Taraklı, Sakarya province. Archive photograph, included for illustration.

An Example of Reaching a Student Audience

A group of students from Cizre Fine Arts High School visited the Mardin Biennial in May 2026, making the seventh edition’s exhibitions part of a school trip. The visit offers a specific example of art reaching an educational audience and raises a question about connecting classroom learning with direct encounters with works and their settings.

The example helps us consider an exhibition as material for observation, beyond seeing artists’ names. An art student can compare the treatment of materials, a work’s scale and its relationship with a site, and consider what changes between seeing a photograph and standing before the work. These are possibilities for educational interpretation; they are not presented as measured outcomes of this trip.

A single visit should also not become a promise that every student will leave with a particular understanding or a new skill. What can be established here is the direct encounter between a group of students and the event. Its longer-term effect on their learning would require further follow-up, or documented work and discussion after the visit.

Istanbul in September: Galleries Presenting Work in One Place

At Tersane Istanbul, Contemporary Istanbul offered a different format on 23–27 September. Dirimart announced its participation in the 21st edition, welcoming visitors to booth B101 and presenting work by 35 artists. Zilberman’s Istanbul gallery also participated in the fair on the same dates.

The figure applies to Dirimart’s presentation, rather than the total number of artists at the fair. It would be inaccurate to turn it into a general headline implying that it describes the whole event. Likewise, describing one booth cannot support a judgement about every participant, but it provides a clear example of how one gallery creates a dialogue between several works.

Dirimart’s presentation included figures from Turkish art history, such as Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu and Fahrelnissa Zeid, alongside artists including Sarkis, Ayşe Erkmen and İnci Eviner, and international names such as Ghada Amer and Tony Cragg. The media ranged across painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation. Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s work also brought together perspectives from photography and cinema.

The value of these names lies in showing the range of generations and media within one booth. A viewer might find a connection between two images, then encounter a sculpture that changes their relationship with scale and space. The comparison concerns the choices on display and does not assume that the artists belong to one school or share a common message.

A Gallery Fair and a Biennial: Where Does the Difference Lie?

These examples reveal a difference in how each experience was organised. In Mardin, a curatorial title linked the venues, with works related to their settings and a programme spread across the city. In the Istanbul example, the gallery’s selection formed a clearly defined unit: a booth with its boundaries, works and group of artists, alongside other organisations’ booths.

This is a reading of these two events, rather than a rule governing every biennial or art fair worldwide. Public programmes, discussions and curatorial choices can overlap across many types of event. Defining the unit being compared remains important: are we discussing the whole event, one participating booth or a venue hosting several works?

That distinction helps readers follow art news beyond prices and famous names. They can ask who chose to bring these works together, how their relationships were developed and what their arrangement adds. They can also distinguish between an artist’s inclusion in a group presentation, an exhibition devoted to their career and a new work made for a particular site.

There is no need to rank the two formats. A gallery fair can make different selections accessible close together in space and time, while a biennial spread across several venues connects viewing art with moving between contexts. The useful approach is to understand what each case presents, then discuss the work and its details without making sweeping judgements about a city or all its visitors.

In this sense, spring in Mardin and September in Istanbul offer two specific examples of contemporary art events in 2026. The first extended beyond the old city and involved new production and public encounters; the second brought gallery presentations together at Tersane Istanbul. After both events ended, the relationship between art, place and audience remained open to discussion, without assuming that a single story could encompass the whole scene.

Related Topics

• A Guide to Society and Culture News in Türkiye
• Education in Türkiye in 2025: Schools, Universities and Student Life
• Festivals and Cultural Life in Türkiye in 2025: Music, Cinema, Art and Living Traditions
• Café Life in Türkiye: Tea, Coffee, Conversation and Working Away from Home
• Life on Istanbul’s European and Asian Sides: Everyday Differences Across the Bosphorus
• Big-City and Small-Town Life in Türkiye: Social Pace, Privacy and Family Ties
• Children in Public Life in Türkiye: Restaurants, Neighbourhoods and School
• Everyday Life in Türkiye in 2025: Family, City Rhythms, Cafés and Traditions
​