ABOUT

Montag Residency is an independent initiative run by artists and cultural workers in Balıkesir Gönen. As a project-based and collaborative artistic production space, it is open to artists, art professionals, curators, art writers, initiatives, and non-profit organizations. Participants are selected by direct invitation or thematic open calls and are given time and space to focus on their production. The residency is located in the village of Gönen Ekşidere, a district of Balıkesir province within the South Marmara Region of the Marmara Region.

Montag experiences socially engaged art practices by bringing together local cultural values and contemporary art professionals.

Montag Residency is an umbrella structure that aims to build strong relationships with the locals by utilizing its networks in Istanbul and Gönen. It is also a place-based art, culture, and community space that aims to develop new strategies within the system. It is especially open to collaborations with institutions abroad. It also provides consultancy services, shares free open calls, and takes initiatives for the democratization of the art scene in Turkey. It collaborates with artists, cultural professionals, local administrations, and initiatives to provide production support and documentation for artists’ production processes.

Team

Founder
Eda Emirdağ

Eda Emirdağ is an artist, cultural worker and lecturer. In addition to being an artist who produces visual arts, she has developed and implemented participatory art projects that produce collective projects. She continues to share her non-profit and open calls, residencies and workshops called callforart in the field of art for the democratization and dissemination of art. https://www.instagram.com/callforartee/
She has completed the British Council 2023-2024 Creative Producer training program. At the end of the training, she was entitled to receive a grant and collaborate with her UK partner.

She participated as a guest artist 6 times within the scope of the Kultivera artist-in-residence program in Sweden and the Tranas at Fringe Festival program and developed projects where 7 different works were exhibited in 7 different locations of the city with the cooperation of the municipality. She carried out participatory art projects with the local people and developed collaborations with artists from different countries. She added the value of a cultural worker to her professional life as a project manager at the independent art platform Maumau and took part in various collective solidarity projects.

Advisor
Pelin İpek Boyacı
Pelin İpek Boyacı was born in 1991 in Kocaeli. She graduated from Yıldız Technical University, Department of Political Science and International Relations. She started but did not complete the Social Projects and Civil Society Management Master’s Programme at Bilgi University. Since 2010, she has been working in civil society, the first 5 years as a volunteer and the rest as a professional. She has experience in areas such as participation mechanisms in communities, horizontal organisation models, facilitation. She has been working in various fields such as education, arts and technology with a focus on coordination, project writing, planning, strategy development, monitoring and evaluation, and communication.

Graphic Desing / First Edition and Corporate Identity : Ali Ekber Çelik

Web Developer: Barış Yenigün

Volunteers: Keziban Selvi, Hikmet Selvi, İhsan Selvi

Associate: Gönen Municipality

Local Collaborator: Gönen Kadın Eli

Funded by: 2024 Culture Civic ( First Edition ) – Sivil Düşün ( Digital Archives and Web )
Supported by: Kaft – Mardin Bienal
2025 SAHA – British Council

ABOUT

Team

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