İzmir-based artist Cansu Çakar lead a series of workshops mapping different stories and destinations using miniature technique, which is traditionally commonly used in mapping. By using this technique she invites participants to rethink traditional arts, and question what they offer us today. The workshop sessions offer an opportunity to work with traditional arts outside of their usual practice, while learning about traditional practice in the context of mapping. The workshops consider if and how the arts are able to present and respond to the urgencies of today.

Workshop participants create maps for different purposes – maps drawing every day in the city, maps drawn to find the city they want to live in, local and international maps, or maps in which we can disregard any political, social, religious or economic constraints — all using traditional mapping and ornamental techniques. Through discussion, debate, and exchange, we've been rethinking history, memory and the mobility in the city now and in the past.

This workshop is an initiative of Bige Örer, the Director of the Istanbul Biennial. On Thursday 31 March Bige Örer and Cansu Çakar talked about this project at Darat al Funun.

--

İzmir based artist Cansu Çakar was born in Istanbul in 1988. She started her higher education in 2006 at Dokuz Eylül University Traditional Turkish Arts Department. In 2012 she went to Moholy – Nagy Arts and Design University in Budapest to study graphic design through a student exchange programme. She earned her BFA in 2013 and now runs an independent art studio called "Minyatür Atölye- Miniature Atelier" in Kardıcalı Han (K2), İzmir.