What did we do?
During the CSE program we organised a digital artist exchange between 17th of May till 22nd of June 2021 in which 20 artists from our networks took part. The aim was to connect our networks in order to lay a strong interpersonal foundation for future cooperation projects. LAG Kunst & Medien and Kirkayak Kültür both strongly believe in the positive effects arts education has on the development of strong personalities as well as community building across cultural differences and language barriers.
Both our institutions rely on the creative works of artists from different fields such as music, media art (photography & film), visual arts, street art and literature. In order to exchange ideas and learn from each other’s methods we needed to enable artists from Germany and Turkey to step into communication. Our exchange offered both a particularly low-threshold for artists who had no experience in international collaboration as well as the chance to learn new perspectives and meet foreign artists in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

After a Kick-off Event via Zoom we formed sub groups on the topics:
(1)Photography as a tool to discover the world
(2) Art in public spaces as a tool to participate in society (two groups)
(3) Music as a tool of nonverbal communication & co-creation
(4) Art production of testimony: providing space for the subject's productions

The intention of the exchange was to create open spaces for building relationships and work from there. Usually you have project managers that identify funding programs, write concepts and then hire artists and social workers to conduct projects. With our exchange we want to reverse this procedure: We want the artists and participants to find shared interests and challenges and then develop their own ideas. This can only happen, when we invest time in our relationships and see eye to eye.

During a closing event all participants came together once more to present their own exchanges in the small groups and learn about the process in the other groups. Each participant shared their own experiences and gave feedback.

Outlook
By organising this very time consuming exchange Deniz Deniz Cengiz from Kırkayak Kültür and Fleur Vogel from LAG KM hope to have established a healthy interpersonal network from which we can start to do projects both digitally and physically with each other. The intensity of the meetings opened new perspectives to the participants and the organisers, helped in understanding each other’s life and work environments and gave inspiration for future projects. Kirkayak Kültür and the LAG Kunst & Medien are working currently on project applications. So the outcome is a functional partnership.

Parallel to the exchange program two envolved artists connected via whatsapp to conduct a small cooperation project called Home & Family. It based on a project which Eda Cekil did with young students in Istanbul. During the exchange Franzis Lating took the Title and conducted a project with teenagers in Cologne. During the project Eda and Franzis would share pictures and thoughts from the process and include the young participants. Some of the teenagers even joined the Closing event of the exchange and presented their work.