Artemis International Association of Arts and Culture

Description of the Organisation
Artemis International Association of Arts and Culture was established in August 2007 with the aim of promoting cultural and artistic activities and spreading them to a wider community as well as reaching young artists who need support and the people who are interested in arts and culture. Although the Association is mainly situated in Ankara, it has a representation office in Istanbul.
The name “Artemis” derives from the Classical Greek mythology where Artemis is the goddess of forests and hills and at the ancient Greek city of Ephesus she was worshipped mainly as a fertility goddess. The cult statues of the Ephesian Artemis have numerous nodes on her chest each of them representing fertility. We took this name as a symbol of the productivity of our artistic and cultural activities.
The main objective of Artemis International Association of Arts and Culture is to bring together young artists from all over Turkey and also from abroad abroad regardless of their social, ethnic and religious background to provide a free space for all of them in order to support the development of artistic activities and projects. We strongly believe that the creative nature of arts helps people to understand and appreciate the rich melange of our diverse cultural mosaic. It also helps us to avoid stereotypes and prejudices. We organise artistic and cultural activities such as workshops, collaborations, discussions, exhibitions and use them as an effective facilitator in order to increase active participation of young people in art and culture. We are in close contact with other arts and culture related associations and institutions with the aim of fostering greater understanding, appreciation and anti-discriminative acquaintance throughout a non-formal and informal learning experience in arts and culture.
Artemis International Association of Arts and Culture has approximately three hundred members who are volunteering at association’s activities. They are mainly students from art related programmes and young artists who are at the age of between 18 and 30. There is also a group of very well known artists  and academic staff who are contributing to our activities. Furthermore we have a good network of institutions who are active at culture and arts area.
Activities:
In respect of arts and culture we organise different kinds of activities during the year. Our activities are open to everybody who are interested in arts and culture, it doesn’t matter if they have an artistic background or not. Mainly we host workshops (Venetian and African mask workshops, ceramic workshops) and organise exhibitions, discussion sessions (focused on history of arts) and special trips to exhibitions, museums and fairs. Since 2009, Artemis International Association of Arts and Culture is supporting the organisation of Gumusluk Arts Academy that takes place during the summer time at a village on the western coast of Bodrum Peninsula. Furthermore Artemis has been actively involved in Youth in Action Programme activities since many years. One of our youth exchange project which was called “Change and Cooperative Evolution” took place in 2009 in Bodrum realising a participatory stone carving workshop programme lasting for 15 days.
Aims of the organisation:
-creating an art and culture friendly environment in the city
-involving international artists and all people who are interested in arts and culture by letting them to create a multicultural and creative environment
-organising international activities to encourage the transnational circulation of artistic and cultural works and products
-promoting youth activities in local, national and international level and giving support to young people to apply for and realise youth projects
-promoting human rights, creating environmental consciousness and focusing on gender equality through using arts and culture as a tool