How Sinop became the arts and culture capital of Turkey's Black Sea coast
As artists have moved back from the bigger cities to their hometown, Sinop has become a regional hub for creativity, and it is centered in an old produce market built in the 1950's.
On a recent hot summer evening in Turkey’s Black Sea coastal city of Sinop, a group of artists were busy at work on a 22-meter collage they were affixing to the breakwater (mendirek in Turkish, colloquially known as Mendobar since many locals hang out and drink there) that lies just across the main pier that flanks the center of town. The collage consisted of a series of photos from different periods of the city’s history, the artists’ aim was to bring together images that reflected Sinop’s identity in order to protect it. Passersby, especially elderly men who were coming to drink a few beers, stopped and perused the collage, and some were visibly moved by scenes they remembered from the city that no longer exist.
While once-sleepy Sinop has grown in popularity as a tourist destination in recent years, resulting in huge crowds, heavy traffic and lots of noise, the city has also benefitted from a return of its residents from Istanbul and other big cities in Turkey who have resettled in their hometown and are actively contributing to making Sinop a vibrant and culturally-rich place. The setting was already ideal, as Sinop is home to a relatively liberal, secular atmosphere in the middle of a conservative part of the country, and it has been ranked as the happiest city in Turkey for years, according to official statistics. Just minutes away are lush beaches with black sand perched inside miniature gulfs where the water of the Black Sea is the perfect temperature for swimming in muggy August and meteor showers flicker in the twinkling night sky.
The hub of Sinop’s art scene is the Hal Sinop Meeting Center, an eclectic collection of cultural associations and workshops. There is a butcher near the entrance and a aging tailor on the building’s second story, the last of his kind. It is also the headquarters of Sinopale, the city’s nascent biennial that was launched in 2006 and opens on September 23rd of this year. Hal is Turkish for produce market, and it was built as such in the 1957 by Muharrem Tansel, a prominent contractor and businessman who also represented Sinop in the Turkish parliament between 1957-1960. Tansel donated the building to the Sinop Municipality on the condition that the profits from its shops be used to distribute financial support to those in need and towards the maintenance of the facility. It remained a vital place for the city until the 1990s before falling into a state of disarray.
Erkan Akliman is the project coordinator for the Sinop Sustainable Development Association, headquartered at the Hal Sinop Meeting Center where he also runs a small cafe that is popular among residents of all ages who come to sip tea or coffee in the shade of the courtyard. In recent years, the building has been brought back to life and has resumed its function as a literal meeting center after a long period of neglect.
“In the 1990’s, first the American [Navy] Base closed down, followed by the the Knitted Garmet Industrial Factory, then the Glass Bottle Factory, then the [infamous and historic] Sinop Fortress Prison. There was no mall in Sinop, and [the Hal] sort of functioned as a mall during its period. From the end of the 1990’s until 2014, this place was stagnant, the shops were in ruins,” Akliman said, explaining how the closure of these important sources of employment and revenue for the city led to the decline of it economy and the disintegration of the Hal, until he and his colleagues stepped in to restore it as both a center for arts and culture as well as a place where small businesses and civil society organizations could also set up shop. This is how the Hal Sinop Meeting Center was created, and it has served as a center for the city’s burgeoning arts scene since 2016.
The rejuvenated building that still bears the distinct modernist architectural style of the time in which it was built is also home to the Hal Collective, which describes itself as “an independent culture and art initiative established with the motivation of creating a space where production-oriented people come together in Sinop, particularly the Hal Sinop Meeting Center. The collective organizes participatory events that bring together local and international artists under the same roof and supports culture and arts events organized in the city, most notably the Sinopale International Biennial. The members of the collective, who returned to Sinop with the reverse migration caused by the pandemic, organize sustainable events throughout the year.”
One of these artists who came back to her hometown after spending most of her adult life in Istanbul is Yağmur Güzle, who decided to leave the big city and all of its chaos behind and focus her efforts on the evolution of Sinop’s art scene.
“Rather than just once every two years, we want to turn the Hal into a place that hosts culture and arts events year-round. This is why the Hal Collective emerged. At the moment we are involved in a project called In Place and Together where we have made an inventory of Sinop’s waste, coming from organized industrial areas, automobile manufacturing plants, small tradesmen, and that which ends up on the coast. We analyzed and classified it, and are benefitting from this inventory by creating design products with the waste of Sinop,” Güzle explained. The project is a key focus of Sinopale, and artists will come to the city in October within the scope of the biennial and will design their own creations from these recycled items.
The collective, in cooperation with the Denizci Hotel, a maritime-themed lodge in the center of the city, also offers an ongoing program where successful applicants who want to come to Sinop and have specific projects in mind can stay at the hotel for free. Some of the artists who designed the collage on the breakwater benefitted from this opportunity, and artists from everywhere are encouraged to apply.
Huge music festivals featuring some of Turkey’s most popular artists are now held in Sinop during the summer, while major concerts take place throughout the year. The premiere of the 9th Sinopale is coming up this month with exhibitions on display between October 11-31. Following that is the Sinop Theatre Festival, which features eight plays and two concerts and other events from the beginning to the end of November. The fall might be the perfect time to visit idyllic and ebullient Sinop, preceding the drizzly winter and following the thick, humid weather and crowded, touristic vibes of summertime.
