Spanning 15 venues, the biennial turns Çanakkale’s urban and rural landscape into an exhibition space.
Like tides that reshape coastlines, the 10th Çanakkale Biennial examines how nature, memory and human experience are transformed through the constant interaction between water and land, bringing together more than 60 artists from nine countries in northwestern Türkiye.
Titled “Metcezir // Ebb & Flow,” the biennial opened on Oct. 10 at the Troy Museum, drawing on Çanakkale’s coastal geography, ceramic traditions and archaeological heritage to explore the traces left by these encounters. Spread across 15 venues in the city center and surrounding rural settlements, the exhibition makes the region itself part of the experience.
The movement of the tides offers a framework for thinking about change: Shorelines erode and accumulate sediment, while landscapes preserve evidence of what has passed through them. The biennial extends this natural cycle to questions of cultural memory, material production and humanity’s relationship with the environment.
The setting lends the theme particular resonance. Situated along the Dardanelles, which connect the Aegean and Marmara seas, Çanakkale has long been shaped by the movement of water, its coastal livelihoods and its cultural history. The artworks explore how the natural world shapes human experience and how people, in turn, leave their mark on the environments they inhabit.
Ceramics take center stage
The Troy Museum anchors the biennial’s first “Special Focus: Ceramics,” bringing contemporary works by artists including Füreya Koral, Elif Uras and SEDNA into dialogue with the region’s archaeological heritage.
Among the participating artists is Lara Ögel, exhibiting ‘Gravity,’ who sees clay as more than a material, describing it as a body that reflects and carries lived experience. “The cracking, shedding, expanding and contracting of the clay are all deeply significant,” Ögel said. She views these physical changes as a visual map of inner experiences, with the material’s layers mirroring the emotional and existential changes people undergo. Working with ceramics, she added, requires patience, understanding and time, becoming a form of confrontation with one’s own soul.
SEDNA presents two new works inspired by memory and transformation. “İz” (Trace) draws on marks left by the sea on sand and the impressions experiences leave on the body and spirit. Its twisted form evokes sisterhood, interconnectedness and resilience. “TAÇ” (Crown), meanwhile, combines handmade glass scenes, plants collected from the museum garden and references to the sun and life cycles, presenting accumulated experience as a record of memory.
In the city center, Mavi Ev (Blue House) brings together ceramic and glass works, painting and digital art. Gülden Ataman’s ‘For Eyes That Listen, For Hands That Watch’ challenges conventional ideas about the material’s fragility and function. Rather than considering them musical instruments, she describes each piece as a “sound-seeking device” for acoustic exploration. “Their output depends entirely on the performer’s manual dexterity and acute listening skills,” Ataman said. The sounds that emerge depend on touch and the combinations chosen by each performer, potentially producing entirely new acoustic experiences. Local musicians explore these possibilities in a video installation at the venue.
German artist Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann, meanwhile, juxtaposes a handcrafted ceramic snake with a mass-produced singing fish toy in ‘Pack.’ Drawing on Çanakkale’s historic ceramics, known for their animal motifs, he brings traditional craftsmanship into conversation with a familiar object of popular culture. “I really enjoy the confrontation between these two different styles of sculpture,” he said, highlighting the contrast between handmade and mass-produced objects that depict animals but carry different values and meanings.
The biennial extends into buildings whose previous uses reflect the city’s history. The Korfmann Library, housed in a former school and tobacco warehouse, presents works engaging with archaeological heritage and traditional building techniques, including Funda Susamoğlu’s response to a terracotta figure at the Troya Museum and Eymen Aktel’s work with adobe.
Along the Sarıçay riverbank, former acorn warehouses now house several exhibition spaces. MAHAL features Johannes Vogl’s Summer Rain – The Smell of Memories, which explores the scent of rain on Aegean soil and vegetation. The neighboring DemirHAN presents works by artists including Ozan Atalan and Mesut Öztürk, whose pieces draw on video, ceramic fragments and firebricks.
The Balıkhane, a working fish market, hosts works addressing marine ecosystems and coastal landscapes. These include Carmen Bouyer’s project connecting the Gediz and Rhône deltas and Annika Boll’s digitally constructed underwater environment. At the ASTİM industrial estate, visitors can see works by A. Serkan Aka and Gözde Mimiko Türkkan at Helin Boztepe Studio and by Manfred Heinze at Süleyman Yılmaz Studio. British artist Kay Aplin’s site-specific public artwork at Çanakkale Biennial Park draws on Troy’s nine archaeological settlement layers. Nine ceramic tile designs combine local botanical motifs with forms drawn from archaeological finds. Produced with the support of Kale Group, the installation is intended to remain in the city after the biennial closes.
Further afield, ORMOS in Yukarı Tartışık village hosts works by Can Altay, Renée Levi and Stijn Ank. The Adatepe Olive Oil Museum presents works by Andreas Treske and Fulya Çetin, while restored stone houses at İda Blue in Adatepe display works by Dilara Akay, Hakan Yılmaz and Meliha Coşkun.
The biennial also marks the 20th anniversary of the Çanakkale Biennial Initiative (CABININ), which has worked to sustain contemporary art in a city outside Türkiye’s main cultural centers. Together, the exhibitions, running until Nov. 20, invite visitors to consider change not as a clean break with the past, but as an ongoing process in which landscapes, materials and human experiences continually shape one another.
