Located in the Marais district on the banks of the River Seine—a neighbourhood long associated with art and culture at the very heart of Paris—the Cité Internationale des Arts is a renowned arts institution that has offered thousands of artists from around the world the opportunity to live and work since 1965. Prioritising practitioners in the fields of visual arts and music, the institution accommodates up to 350 artists at a time in individual studios allocated for periods ranging from two months to one year. With its exhibition spaces, rehearsal studios, concert and performance venues, the Cité also provides fertile ground for artistic development and active creative production.
In addition to individual applications submitted directly to the Cité Internationale des Arts by artists worldwide, public and private institutions from 60 countries also sign special agreements to rent long-term studio spaces. These agreements enable them to host artists of their own choosing each year.
Since 2009, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) has hosted 55 artists from Türkiye in the Türkiye Studio at the Cité des Arts, made possible by a 20-year rental agreement. In 2025, the programme was expanded to include practitioners working in music and literature in addition to the visual arts. Each year, two visual artists, one musician and one writer are now offered the opportunity to live and work in Paris. Artists invited to the programme are selected through an open call process by three separate selection committees, each composed of experts in the relevant field.
Turkey Season in France and the 20-Year Türkiye Workshop in Paris
Until 2009, Türkiye did not have a dedicated studio at the Cité des Arts—an institution that brings together approximately 350 artists from diverse disciplines and geographies. In a setting where countries such as Germany, Switzerland, China, Japan and Iran each maintain several long-term studios, securing a dedicated space typically requires significant financial investment and long waiting periods.
Thanks to the “Turkey Season in France”, a major cultural initiative realised in 2009 under the auspices of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and coordinated by İKSV, a 20-year studio rental agreement was secured on behalf of Türkiye.
The Türkiye Workshop was developed by Çelenk Bafra, Visual Arts Coordinator of the Turkey Season, together with Banu Dicle, Chair of the SİMİT Foundation and curator of the exhibition Entre-Deux, held as part of the same programme. The studio officially opened on 1 July 2009, following the signing of an agreement between İKSV and the management of the Cité des Arts. Located on the fourth floor of the main building, the studio—numbered 8419—covers an area of approximately 40 square metres and is marked with a sign on the door reading Turquie in French.
The workshop, which aims to provide young artists from Turkey working in the field of contemporary visual arts with regular and long-term working opportunities at this important European art institution, consists of a bedroom for two people, a kitchen, a bathroom, a mini storage room for artists' materials, and a workshop. Thus, artists sent from Turkey to the Cité des Arts over the past twenty years have had the opportunity to live and work in this studio allocated to them in the heart of Paris, utilise the special studios within the Cité des Arts, and subsequently exhibit their works in the Cité des Arts' exhibition halls.