Celebrating 50 Years “National Archive and Research Institute” in Girne

with the Printing Exhibition ‘BELLEK’ 19.10.2021-19.02.2022

By Heidi Trautmann

I felt rather excited to learn that the BELLEK Exhibition would be shown in Girne and I called Ayhatun Ateşın, the curator of this exhibition, to learn more and we met on Oct 20 at the National Archive in the Entrance Hall of the Research Centre, which is well known to me.

Ayhatun Ateşın is a passionate supporter for the printing art; for many years she has been holding workshops in this discipline at the EMU (Eastern Mediterranean University) in Famagusta and I have visited them several times and wrote about it. See the link below

http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=4444764787#.YXEzFhpByUk

http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=1167673243#.YXEzOhpByUk

Printmaking has a very long history and goes back to 3000 years AD and developed further in the Middle Ages. Printing and Etching was then a separate profession; the artist took his design to such an expert who carried it out in the requested technique, there is blockprinting (stone, wood, lino) and etching on metal surfaces.  Read more if you are interested to know about it more deeply https://www.britannica.com/art/printmaking/History-of-printmaking

There are now some printing fascilities at some universities today.  Around 2010 there was only one printing machine in North Cyprus, the one owned by Mustafa Öztunç, which was being used for a while by the graphic artists.

Ayhatun Ateşın explained that she plans to create a museum to honour this old art form together with their machines, which are displayed together with the exhibition. She has some experience in collecting old witnesses of time, for example for the broadcasting medium, and bringing them together for a museum as she did in the building of BRT. I have recently admired this house museum.

It is a beautiful collection of print works by 15 artists, most of them I had already met at the workshops I mentioned above. See the list of names on the poster. Beautiful examples of various printing techniques.

Ayhatun plans to hold another workshop end of the year, again in Famagusta. The printing art should not only be kept alive but spread and taught, is her opinion and it is also mine.

PS: My advice to the artists when framing their work to think about not to use non-reflective glass. In my opinion it deadens the artwork, it lays a film over it and the brilliance is gone.

I have added only a part of the art works on display....

The exhibition can be viewed during normal office hours. When you come to the gate, call the tel. no. on the gate, the watchman will open the gate for you.