Cappadox 2016: Let Us Cultivate Our Garden

Pozitif has announced the second year of Cappadox, the definitive Cappadocia experience, a progressive multi-disciplinary cultural festival that brings a host of international and local contemporary art, music, nature and outdoor programmes together. Set in the dramatic landscape of Cappadocia in Central Anatolia, Cappadox 2016 will take place between May 19 and 22, and offer guests unrivalled access to live music, contemporary art, gastronomy and outdoors activities.

Cappadox 2016 sets out with the theme “Let us cultivate our garden” through which diverse fields of the festival will intersect with each other.

The art programme of Cappadox will continue until June 12, and will be curated by Fulya Erdemci and Kevser Güler (Associate Curator) with the participation of 15 artists and collaborators including Asunción Molinos Gordo (Cairo, Muscat and Guzmán), Ayşe Erkmen (Berlin and Istanbul), Christoph Schaefer (Hamburg), Hera Büyüktaşçıyan (Istanbul), John Körmeling (Eindhoven), Maider Lopez (San Sebastian), Marilá Dardot (São Paulo), Murat Germen (Istanbul), Murat Şahinler (Istanbul) and Nilbar Güreş (Vienna and Istanbul). Taking a closer look at Cappadocia; which has been going through a shift from an agrarian livelihood to an economy more reliant on tourism, the artists will focus on farming, “fast” tourism and the relations of production under transformation. Furthermore, with site-specific and context responsive interventions, they will bring to the forefront the area’s living culture, inhabitants, voices, textures and even blossoming flowers.

“Let us cultivate our garden” is a quote from the last sentence of Voltaire’s classic novel Candide. This sentence summarizes the worldview of an old farmer who Candide meets in Istanbul (Constantinople), after traveling the whole world in pursuit of happiness. It also holds a proposal against contemporary lifestyles, which primarily generate heat and speed.

The imperative “let us” in the title anticipates acting together, while “garden” and “cultivate” lead to metaphorical conceptions: “garden” implies our immediate environment, our life and relationships. Likewise, the word “cultivate” involves the acts of humbly developing, shaping and transforming, even preparing a Future which is in harmony with nature.

This theme also leads to further connotations; such as the human-caused planetary changes—climate change, deforestation, loss of farmland, water and air pollution and loss of biodiversity. The Cappadox art programme will consider resources of all living beings—such as water, seed and food—through political and cultural lenses. It will take soil as the value parameter and reflect on alternative living practices, which are not necessarily centered on human beings.

The diverse and independently programmed activities of Cappadox related to art, music, gastronomy, and the outdoors (including nature walks and sunrise concerts) will be brought together through different scopes and intensities under the festival’s theme. They will be held in spaces that range from agricultural fields to historic sites, from touristic structures to local settlements.