Let's get to know you a bit. What is Grid and what does it do?

Grid Istanbul is an agency organizing art and design events. It also represents many artists and design studios and we are looking for exhibition opportunities and new projects for them. We are specialized especially in digital art and design. In addition to this, we have been interested in street art and illustration for the past one year.

Grid Istanbul has a really wide field of work. While we are developing our own projects such as Grid Festival, Pop-Up exhibition and CONTRA, we are also associate with other important art organizations: the most important example for this is the new media fair called Plugin formed out of our collaboration with Contemporary Istanbul. In addition to all, we are offering digital design services for corporate customers by working with a lot of design studios in Turkey and abroad.

How did the idea for Grid Istanbul come out?

We actually started this ten years ago as Kurye Video. As a non-profit team, we have started the oldest international video art festival called Kurye, which is still going on. We formed Kurye Video Archive, which has turned into one of the ten big archives in Europe over the time.  We held the first exhibitions of many artists, who can now find a place in galleries and museums easily. Our area of interest expanded over the time and we started to get interested in all the areas of digital art and design. Grid Istanbul has emerged at this point as a result of our wish to found a professional agency by using our knowledge that we have gained through festival, exhibition, seminar and workshop organizations over the time, and our international network. 

CONTRA is realized as the first contemporary Turkish art fair organized parallel to Frieze. What were the factors effecting your decision?

Frieze is one of the most important events in the art world and London is one of the art capital of the world. More than 500 galleries and thousands of artists are represented every year in Frieze and fairs parallel to it; but the number of Turkish galleries or artists are not more than the count n the fingers of one hand. After all when Turkish galleries attend foreign fairs, they prefer the artists, who has got works with more possibility for sales. So young artists have got less chance to attend foreign fairs. If they are producing work in the fields with less possibility for sale such as street art, illustration, new media, video or photography, then they have less chance to attend. Concordantly, our main goals were to provide visibility abroad for these kind of artists and to create a significant Turkish art environment in London during Frieze.

First Piartworks and then Rodeo opened their London branches. How would you explain the reason of this tendency? What is the interest in Turkish art like in London?

This being a tendency can be debatable.  Rodeo has got only one or two Turkish artist. It is not right to associate Rodeo with Turkish contemporary art. Piartworks is a better example in this matter. But, it wouldn't be quite right to deduce according to only one gallery. There is generally an interest in art in London and the number of buyers are also more. We are not sure if there is a special interest in Turkish art. There is curiosity; but Turkish art is not widely known. It will be possible to mention this kind of interest in near future together with Turkish galleries opened in London and events like CONTRA. 

London was quite busy both with Frieze and secondary fairs. Did you manage to get the interest you were expecting in the opening of CONTRA?

Actually the number of spectators were below our expectations. We don't think we made a bad start considering that this was our first edition. It was also quite pleasing that the most of the people who came were rather buyers or find new artists rather than just to visit the fair.

How was the three days of exhibition for you?

Exhausting, but pleasant. It was exhausting since we made such a big event in London and the first events do always come with extra difficulties. But, the excitement of the first event is also big. Public representatives of  foreign galleries and new project proposals as well as buyers and press were pleasing for us.  

What were your criteria when you are choosing your artists?

We tried to gather young and talented artists. Our other criteria was to provide versatility.  Because, one of the main purpose of CONTRA is to go beyond prejudices that exist in people on contemporary Turkish art and show them that there is a vivacious and diversified art environment in Turkey. Since there is illustration, street art and new media fairs around us, we tried to focus on these fields specifically.

There were other secondary fairs except CONTRA such as Kinetica, The Other Art Fair, Moniker. For instance I was impressed by Kinetica, which focused on kinetic and electronic works. Which one has attracted your attention?

We were interested in Moniker more. Street art is one of our area of interest anyway. We also believe that the best booths come out of the street art booths. They use the booth area really well. They get out of the standard white cube approach. Hence it is really pleasing for us to tour in a fair focused only on street art.

There were a couple of beautiful and exciting work in Kinetica. But the layout of the fair was terrible.  This venue was too little for Kinetica. On the other hand we are thinking on how a new media fair should be like more than before since we have done Plugin. When we look from Kinetica's aspect, the versatility on their approach to attendants is something that we also support; yet it fails in matters such as lighting.

You have chosen The Old Truman Brewery, which also hosts some other secondary fairs as a venue. How was your experience with the venue?

The Old Truman Brewery was a very beautiful venue. A lot of important events in London from design week to fashion week use this venue anyway.  It is preferred since it has numerous halls and attracts a serious crowd especially during the weekends. But then again there are also the difficulties to make a fair in an area that is not originally designed to make fair.

What kind of projects do you have for futures as Grid Istanbul?

We have got some on going projects. The most important ones are: a new media project called Plugin Istanbul, which we have developed and undertook the management for Contemporary Istanbul; Pop-Up, which  is a one night art /party project gathering people of Istanbul with a new artist every months and forming around the live drawing performance of artists; the one and only international digital design and culture festival of Turkey called GRID; the oldest on going international video and digital art festival called Kurye. We have got various newness for all these this year. The most important one of this is to include artists from other fiels as well rather than the street art and illustration, which we have focused up until now, and to carry GRID festival abroad by making London as the first stop.

​We also have new projects for sure. The one that we put emphasis on most is a one day country based design festival series that is focused on the design culture of a different country in each edition. The first edition is going to focus on Holland. We have England and Sweden as the first step for later. We are also aiming this to be a long term project as the other Grid Istanbul projects.

Are you planning to realize CONTRA next year as well? Are there going to be anything new?

We have designed CONTRA as a long term project. Our aim is to make CONTRA a roaming event. In our list, we have three European capitals first and then States. We have already started to work for our first destination in Europe. If everything goes according to plan, then we will be ready to announce the place and the date of second edition.