Türkiye’s Culture Route in 2026: New Cities and Art in Public Spaces

[TURKIYE]

Türkiye’s Culture Route in 2026: New Cities and Art in Public Spaces

The Culture Route programme expanded to 26 cities, welcoming six new locations. From spring to autumn, museums, crafts and children’s activities featured alongside concerts, while further stops remained on the calendar for the final months of the year.

The Culture Route’s 2026 map brought more than a repeat of the previous year. Aydın, Eskişehir, Kahramanmaraş, Mersin, Ordu and Sakarya joined the programme, changing where events were hosted and who could attend them within their own city. The figure of 26 describes the cities on the annual programme. It does not mean that every stop finished at the same time or offered an identical experience.

The season can therefore be understood through particular openings and local programmes, beyond the number of concerts. In Mersin, coastal venues, museums and a library joined the map. Eskişehir’s opening was associated with a modern art museum. Ordu featured an exhibition of living heritage, while Sakarya published an account after its programme ended, describing what the city had hosted. These contrasting examples belong to one project and raise a useful question: what happens within a city when culture is shared between an auditorium, a museum, a park and a workshop?

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

Six Additions Reshape the Programme’s Map

The six cities were announced as part of a programme extending over approximately eight months. Their spread across coastal and inland locations makes it useful to see the season as a network of stops, each drawing its own public. Every city has its institutions, spaces and traditions, so a list of performers alone cannot explain what its participation added.

There is a practical difference between a city joining for the first time and one returning to the programme. A first edition needs to introduce people to the festival and connect its different sites under a shared name. Experienced cities can build on the public’s familiarity with those venues. The number of cities alone, however, tells us nothing about the quality of access, the proportion of new participants or the continuation of activity after the advertised dates. Those questions require evidence from individual cities and cannot be answered by geographical expansion alone.

A city’s place on the programme also does not make every cultural event held there part of the festival. Independent exhibitions or concerts may take place at the same time. Identifying the event, its programme and its organiser helps distinguish the Culture Route season from the whole of local cultural life.

Mersin: A Beginning on the Coast and in Cultural Institutions

Mersin’s first participation opened on 9 May, with its programme scheduled to run until 17 May. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced 159 activities under 57 headings at 16 venues. These figures describe the plan presented at the opening.

The range of places offers a clearer picture than the figures alone: Soli Beach for concerts, Mersin İdman Yurdu Square for children’s activities, Tarsus Museum, the cultural centre and the public library. This map brought together people seeking a large concert with those preferring a smaller activity or a visit to a cultural institution. Participation takes different forms: sitting in a large audience differs from a conversation in a workshop, and both differ from exploring an exhibition at one’s own pace.

Mersin also shows that a “route” need not be a single path everyone follows in sequence. Here it is a network of places carrying parts of the programme. Knowing the venue and the kind of activity is therefore more useful than knowing the city’s name alone. With activities extending to Tarsus, imagining the entire programme around one stage in central Mersin would be misleading.

Eskişehir: An Opening in a Museum

The Eskişehir stop opened on 16 May, with its programme scheduled for 16–24 May. Odunpazarı Modern Museum hosted the opening of the city’s first participation. Organisers announced 177 activities under 59 headings at 11 venues as their plan for the nine days.

Beginning at a modern art museum gives the opening a different emphasis from a photograph of a concert stage alone. It places an established cultural institution within the public festival and reminds readers that a visit can begin with looking at an artwork and thinking about it. For readers following events from a distance, knowing the opening venue helps explain the programme’s character even without personal experience of attending.

The museum’s name cannot, however, turn every event in the city into visual art. The programme also included music, workshops, children’s activities and other forms. A more accurate account preserves that variety, without allowing one opening photograph to stand for all nine days. Nor does a lengthy programme automatically demonstrate that every group of residents had equal access to it.

Sakarya: What Do We Know After the Nine Days?

Sakarya scheduled its first stop for 4–12 July. The municipality announced concerts, theatre and exhibitions beforehand, then published a report on 13 July after the festival ended. It described nine concerts, alongside artistic activities, children’s programmes and food culture.

In Sakarya, the public park formed part of the relationship between the event and the city, alongside activities within institutions. The programme’s possible contribution thus extended beyond the names on a stage to the use of public space for cultural encounters. That is something its structure makes visible, without implying that every visitor took part in every type of activity.

The historic Ramazanoğlu Medrese in Adana, used as a cultural centre. Archive photograph, included for illustration.

Nevşehir and Ordu: Museums and Living Heritage on the Map

The Nevşehir stop opened on 1 August, with a programme scheduled until 9 August. Official coverage at the opening described workshops, exhibitions, children’s programmes, music and talks. Güray Museum in Avanos also featured in preparations. This illustrates how a festival can reach a place with its own cultural identity and develop connections with its surroundings.

In Ordu, the programme began on 22 August, with 30 August listed as its final day. The opening included a visit to “Living Heritage: Ordu” at Taşbaşı Cultural Centre. Here another way of presenting culture came into view: showing the city’s crafts and memory alongside the arts brought to it by a wider season.

“Living heritage” does not mean that everything displayed is old or unchanging. It concerns the relationship between knowledge, practice and the people who carry and transmit them. It is therefore useful to distinguish looking at a finished product from understanding how it is made, and both from trying the process oneself. Each offers a valuable but different degree of familiarity with a craft.

Nor does a workshop become a long-term programme merely by appearing in a festival. A particular session may offer an introduction, while learning and sustaining a skill require time, practice and a relationship with a teacher. Recognising those limits helps us value an activity for what it offers, without expecting it to preserve an entire city’s heritage in a few days.

Children’s Programmes Broaden the Picture

Children featured in the Mersin, Sakarya and Nevşehir programmes, extending the picture of participation beyond concert audiences to activities suited to different ages and interests. In Mersin, the programme map connected children’s activities with a particular square, while Sakarya’s closing report discussed aspects of its children’s programme. Identifying the activity and its setting helps reveal what happens beyond the main stage.

A family visit may combine a child’s activity with an adult’s interest, but this depends on the schedules and locations fitting together. Having both in the same city does not demonstrate that they are nearby or simultaneous, and it does not make every performance suitable for every age. Reading the details is therefore part of understanding what a festival offers, even before assessing the audience’s experience.

The role of cultural institutions also comes into focus during the season. A library or museum can offer a setting with a different character from a large outdoor stage. Someone may first discover such a place through the festival, then learn about its work throughout the year. Spreading activities across venues creates that possibility; measuring whether visits continue requires later follow-up.

Venue Counts and Types of Participation Tell Different Stories

When a city announces its venue count, it describes the programme’s distribution rather than the time each person spends at it. An activity total may combine a large concert, a small workshop, a short discussion and an exhibition running for several days. An “activity” is therefore not a uniform unit for comparing experiences directly.

A more useful comparison between Mersin, Eskişehir and Sakarya looks at how their programmes were assembled: coastal venues and cultural institutions in the first, a museum opening in the second, and a park with varied performances in the third. These differences can be linked to specific reports and give readers a practical sense of each stop’s local character.

Selected Stops: Placing the Dates in the Season

The table sets out selected spring, summer and autumn stops, through to Gaziantep’s programme, which began in October.

City	Programme dates in 2026	Place in the season
Şanlıurfa	25 April–3 May	Listed among the spring stops
Aydın	2–10 May	Joined the programme in 2026
Mersin	9–17 May	Its first participation opened on 9 May
Eskişehir	16–24 May	Its first participation opened on 16 May
Trabzon	6–14 June	Listed among the summer stops
Samsun	20–28 June	Listed among the summer stops
Sakarya	4–12 July	Its programme concluded on 12 July
Konya	18–26 July	Listed among the summer stops
Nevşehir	1–9 August	Its stop opened on 1 August
Ordu	22–30 August	Its opening included a visit to the living heritage exhibition
Istanbul	26 September–4 October	Scheduled as an autumn stop
Gaziantep	3–11 October	Began on 3 October and was continuing until 11 October

Gaziantep: An Ongoing Programme Connecting the City with Food Culture

GastroAntep was scheduled for 3–11 October. Municipal reports covered its opening and activities across the city during the first few days. It brought a local dimension connecting the Culture Route with food culture, alongside the festival’s wider programme.

The programme was still under way on 9 October, with further activities scheduled before its announced conclusion on 11 October.

Later Cities: Announced Dates in Their Proper Place

The later calendar includes Diyarbakır on 10–18 October, Mardin on 17–25 October, İzmir from 24 October to 1 November, and Adana on 7–15 November. These are announced dates for stops after the period covered by this article.

Showing these dates explains how the season extends into November, while keeping them separate from completed events. Even within one city, a particular activity may run for a shorter period than the overall festival. Readers checking a workshop or performance programme therefore need to distinguish that activity’s dates from those of the entire stop.

Through these examples, the Culture Route’s 2026 season combines clear geographical expansion with varied forms of participation. Readers can approach it through concerts, museums, crafts or children’s activities, each offering a different experience. Following a city becomes more meaningful when events are connected with their setting and the participation they made possible, while upcoming dates retain their proper place in the chronology.

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