The Forum "City and Art" which will take place in Istanbul between 6th-8th March 2009 in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University will include conferences, discussions, presentations, workshops, as well as artistic and cultural activities, excursions and receptions.

The Forum aims at bringing together European art and design academia with cities' cultural actors in order to question the present and future role of the art universities in relation with the cities in which they are located and in relation with their citizens. In order to draw an overall picture of the present situation and the tendencies which will influence the future, European cultural, educational and media policies will initially be revisited and their influences on the metropolitan culture and the position of the arts in the metropolitan society will be discussed.

Within the general picture drawn in the first part, the Forum will then focus on the notion of art in public space and the public intervention of art. Examples of art and design practices related to city and the arts as well as methods of learning and teaching in which city is used as the site or material of the arts and design practices will be presented.

The Forum will also include a work session organized in cooperation with ELIA European League of Institutes of the Arts - which is an associate partner of the project - concerning the latest issues related with networking and cooperation between European universities.   

The new internet based social network project Artacademia.net will also be presented within the framework of the Forum and universities will be asked for cooperation and/or participation for the development of this very efficient and practical new communication tool.

The Forum "City and Art" is part of a wider cooperation project consisting of five main activities. Please visit the project website for details.

We are very pleased to invite art academia and representatives of the art universities as well as cultural actors from the cities of Europe to Istanbul between 6th-8th March 2009 to get acquainted with the contemporary cultural life in this mega-city while discussing and exchanging knowledge and opinions.

Main Venue: Auditorium of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Meclis-i Mebusan Cad. 24 Findikli, Istanbul (click for google map)

Participation Fee: No participation fee!

During the Forum simultaneous translation in Turkish and in English will be available.