Canakkale's first children biennial gets under way

Canakkale added yet another annual art event to its agenda over the weekend when a new children's biennial was unrolled in this northwestern Turkish province. Some 5,000 children aged between 5 and 15 from 17 countries and over 20 Turkish provinces are taking part in the month-long event, which opened on Saturday, the Anatolia news agency reported on Saturday. "My Friend Biennial -- International Canakkale Children's Biennial 2012" is set to continue until Dec. 16 with exhibitions and workshops in the Eski Otogar (Old Bus Terminal), Korfmann Library and the Mavitay Children's Home for Culture. The brainchild of artist/academic Seyhan Boztepe, who is also the founder and director of the Canakkale Biennial, this first edition of the biennial is curated by artist Mustafa Horasan, also an academic. The biennial is aimed at "transforming the act of ‘making art' into a huge playground that [they] can all have fun liberally," Horasan says on the biennial's website. "We are holding numerous workshops and similar activities on different disciplines of fine arts. In the end, we're expecting to see [these children] as curious, creative and active individuals," he adds. The biennial is a joint effort between the Canakkale Municipality and the Mavitay Children's Home for Culture. For more information, see www.arkadasimbienal.com/en.