Welcome to 2010 in Northern Cyprus!
Our first job of the new year is to tell you about an exciting event happening in January in Northern Cyprus.

One of our regular contributors, German artist Heidi Trautman has been working hard on a new bi-lingual book, “Art and Creativity in North Cyprus“. A comprehensive guide to art and the artists who create it living in Northern Cyprus. To go with the book the European Mediterranean Art Association is holding a very special exhibition of work by forty seven of the artists featured in it.

The exhibition will be opened by none other than the Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat on January 15th at 19:00 at the Atatürk Congress Centre at the Near East University. Everyone is welcome to the opening and the exhibition and it runs to the 29th January.

‘Art and Creativity in North Cyprus‘ has been four years in the making and the artists have welcomed Heidi Trautmann into their studios and their lives, and have confided in her the many experiences of hardship and ways of life that are representative of their people.

Heidi Trautmann, painter and writer, a traveller as she calls herself, a traveller in the world of the arts, first became acquainted with representatives from the Cypriot Turkish art scene in 2005.

When she and her husband first came here in 1999, she was astonished to find hardly any interaction between the art scenes of national and foreign artists; neither had any knowledge of the other, there were no archives of any sort available to the art lover, no professional art galleries or art museums.  Having lived on a sailing boat for six years and having travelled the Mediterranean and its countries, she was most curious to unravel the art scene in the alleys and back alleys of the country to discover the core of life which for her is art and creativity. She found it and since then she has talked her way through to a great percentage of the important artists.

Images were unrolled before Heidi that cover eras from early in the last century right up to the present. There are also non-Cypriot artists included in the book, artists who have lived here for more than 20 years, who have also experienced the country’s destiny and have contributed in many ways to the cultural image. (North) Cyprus has always been open to multicultural co-existence.

Here is a list of the artists featured in the book
Ali Atakan, Ruzen Atakan, Gonen Atakol, Ayhatun Atesin, Baki Bogaç,
Marilyn Bosworth, Muriel Clutten, Cevdet Cagdas, Sevcan Çerkez, Emin Çizenel,
Sheila Davis, Ilsa Easson, Emel Erkan, Mustafa Erkan, Sinem Ertaner, Umit Ali Esinler, Ozgul Ezgin, Nilgun Guney, Günay Güzelgün, Mustafa Hasturk, Christina Hessenberg,  Anne Hughes, Feridun Isiman, Kadir Kaba, Inci Kansu, Giray Karahasan, Eser Keçeci,  Anber Onar, Osman Keten, Johann Pillai, Veli Kaymaklili, Deirdre Kirk, Asik Mene, Ayhan Mentes, Vedia Okutan, Lisani Otag, Ilkay Onsoy, Senol Ozdevrim, Guner Pir,  Rüya Resat, Emel Samioglu, Ozden Selenge, Zehra Sonya, Ersin Taser, Ismet Tatar, Mehmet Uluhan, Hikmet Uluçam and Svetlana Ziusina.

(our apologies, some of the accents and characters on the artists names do not display correctly on our site). As soon as we obtain details of where you can get hold of a copy of the book, we’ll let you know…

In the meantime Lincguide  is on holiday for the next 2 weeks.
After 18 months of blood, sweat and tears finding the best places to go, and do in Northern Cyprus we’re switching the computers off. The best guide to Living in Northern Cyprus will be back mid January.

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