The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) will partner up with the Netherlands Embassy in Ankara and the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Istanbul for a two-day conference starting on June 26.

The Making Connections through Arts and Culture conference will include 40 speakers, moderators and commentators from Turkey and the Netherlands, who will focus on a wide range of topics from sustainable cities to cultural heritage, festivals, and cultural management.

The conference at Feriye Palace in Istanbul will bring participants from 19 cities in Anatolia and representatives of Dutch institutions together in a series of panel discussions.

Moderated by writer and TV programmer Yekta Kopan, the conference will start with opening speeches from the ambassador of the Netherlands in Ankara, Marjanne de Kwaasteniet, cultural attaché of the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Istanbul, Quirine van der Hoeven, and general director of İKSV, Görgün Taner.

During seven sessions, speakers as well as moderators and commentators from the Netherlands and Istanbul will share their views on many topics.

The Sustainable Cities session will focus on the role of culture in sustainability through examples from Çanakkale, Afyon, Van and Istanbul provinces while the session of Cultural Management in Local, where representatives of Bursa, Konya and Hatay provinces will discuss the role of culture and art in local government planning. The City Festivals session will discuss the effects of festivals on the city through examples from Mersin, Malatya and Rize provinces, the Participatory Approaches in Culture and Arts session will focus on participatory examples from Trabzon, Mersin, Gaziantep and Mardin province.

The Collective Memory and Local Governments session will discuss how the collective memory of a city is shaped through culture and art with the examples of Çanakkale, Mardin and Hatay. The Cultural Heritage and City session is about the management of cultural heritage with examples from Gaziantep, Tunceli and Rize provinces. And the Learning Through Art session will discuss art programs out-of-school education developed for children and young people with participants from Mardin, Rize and Çorum provinces.

In the sessions that will be supervised by moderators, speakers will talk about their projects and initiatives that make a difference in Anatolia, while the commentators will contribute with examples from their own cities.

All sessions can be watched live on the Facebook pages of İKSV and the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Istanbul. During the conference, all sessions will be open to remote participation with questions and comments via live broadcast and social media channels.