An expedition of over 30 people. SEAS artists and a small technical and management team from all over Europe, traveled by road from Istanbul to Batumi. Along the way shorter stops were planned to spontaneously interchange with local people and community groups. Animations - films, workshops, short presentations - were the tools of encounter. SOM engaged in the local coordination of the SEAS X Turkey project. Selen Akçalı from SOM was appointed as Local Coordinator of the project by Intercult.

SEAS X began with a laboratory on the road, the SEAS Xpedition, and finalized in Georgia with the four day arts festival SEAS X Batumi. The first SEAS presence in Turkey was the ten day festival SEAS Istanbul 2009, a collaboration between Black/North SEAS/Intercult and Istanbul 2010.

Chris Torch, artistic director, Black/North SEAS and Intercult:

“The focus for SEAS X in 2010 is a crystallizing of experiences from the first three years of the project. We are increasing our mobility and reducing to a smaller group of artists and technicians, entering into - for us - unexplored cultural territory. SEAS Xpedition is about mutual learning. We come with both finished works and art in process, looking for encounters in cities that are improvising the future. Coastal towns along the Black Sea share a present and future where tourism and sustainability are the biggest challenges. How to develop and yet maintain traditions in a contemporary context?”

SEAS Xpedition stops in Turkey

Starting in Istanbul the Xpedition travelled along the Black Sea coast with a final stop in Batumi, Georgia. The stops of the expedition in Turkey were as follows:

Akçakoca Closest to Istanbul, this village seems to take on life in a slower tempo which makes the highly  modern mosque in the village centre an unexpected  glimpse into the future.

Ünye The largest town during the trip, this thriving coastal town is working to integrate the sea and beach into their future of cultural tourism.

Çamlıhemşin A small village in the hills that maintains its roots of the Hemşin-people and has a greatly expanded summer population of Turks with country homes in the hills.

Hopa This border town is the regular stop of many trucks moving between Turkey and Georgia, the Caucasus and further on to Iran.