Müşterek Taksim is a concert series that aims to reinterpret the deep-rooted heritage of classical Turkish music through today’s aesthetic and creative sensibilities. On this journey from past to present, musicians from different generations come together to recreate the traditional on a shared stage.

Bringing the traces of the past together with the sound of today, it builds a musical language created together and invites its audience on a contemporary journey within cultural continuity. We are excited to offer audiences an in-depth, holistic and collective musical experience with Müşterek Taksim, within Beykoz Kundura’s perspective of stage and memory.

An Evening at Beykoz Kundura: a series of events spread across Sundays, where food, conversation and music come together in a single flow. In these gatherings, which begin as the day slows down, guests move to the concert hall after dinner and come together to the sounds of jazz.

Shaped by the natural atmosphere of Beykoz and the industrial heritage of Kundura, the series centers on sharing, listening and time spent together. An Evening at Beykoz Kundura welcomes different musicians and projects every Sunday, making music part of the natural flow of the evening.

Müşterek Taksim is a concert series that aims to reinterpret the deep-rooted heritage of classical Turkish music through today’s aesthetic and creative sensibilities. On this journey from past to present, musicians from different generations come together to recreate the traditional on a shared stage.
Bringing the traces of the past together with the sound of today, it builds a musical language created together and invites its audience on a contemporary journey within cultural continuity. We are excited to offer audiences an in-depth, holistic and collective musical experience with Müşterek Taksim, within Beykoz Kundura’s perspective of stage and memory.

Onur Çalışkan – Clarinet

Hüseyin Can Pala – Vocals, Bağlama, Kopuz

Merih Aşkın – Vocals, Fretless Guitar, Aşkın Sazı

Event Duration: 75 Min

Bringing together three musicians who love playing together, “Geçici” (“Ephemeral”) takes its cue from Seneca’s words “Everything that begins comes to an end,” offering listeners an experience with a wide perspective that stretches from Anatolian music to experimental sounds. Uniting three distinct colors, “Geçici” creates a unique memory with its own compositions as well as traditional sounds.

Vampyr is a mockumentary that follows the traces of beings that reject the sharp divide between nature and culture and resist changing form. Half dead, half animal, half human, half earth… These ambiguous beings, which defy definition, roam the wind turbine farms built without oversight in Chile, appearing sometimes as disoriented bats and sometimes as workers exhausted from the night shift.

Offering a narrative steeped in black humor about exhaustion and energy, work and rest, Vampyr invites us to question our relationships with non-human beings and our energy policies for the future.

After “How to Become Stone,” which we staged in 2022 to great acclaim, Manuela Infante returns to Istanbul three years later on June 27 and 28 with the documentary-theater piece “Vampyr,” of which Beykoz Kundura is an international co-producer!

The play is performed in Spanish with Turkish and English surtitles.

Vegetative State is a polyphonic, branching, multiplying, repeating, divisible and motionless monologue. The play’s protagonist is a woman, yet she is not an individual; she is a crowd, a swarm. This is not an animal play; it is a plant play.

Drawing on Michael Marder’s philosophy of plants and Stefano Mancuso’s groundbreaking research in plant neurobiology, the play explores how concepts such as plant intelligence, the vegetal soul and plant communication might transform our creative practice.

If we accept that plants possess different forms of thinking, feeling, communicating and consciousness, perhaps we must also rethink our own human ways of thinking, feeling and being aware. In the words of Michael Marder,

“To acknowledge a valid ‘other’ in plants is to begin to recognize the vegetal other within ourselves.”

Vegetative State revolves around an impossible dialogue between humans and plants. Perhaps this failed dialogue with nature is one of our deepest monologues.

Manuela Infante’s Trilogy Comes Full Circle at Beykoz Kundura!

“Vegetative State,” the first part of Manuela Infante’s trilogy questioning human-centered thought, returns to audiences at Beykoz Kundura after a two-year break.

When we staged “How to Turn into Stone?” in 2022, Infante’s theatrical language resonated strongly in Istanbul. Now, as one of the international co-producers of “Vampire,” the third and final part of the trilogy, we are thrilled to also bring “Vegetative State,” the trilogy’s starting point, to our audience.

With this play, we once again invite you to question our relationships with human and non-human beings, our ways of thinking, and the way we perceive nature.

Friday, May 9 – Vegetative State

⏰ 21:00 (80 minutes)

Saturday, May 10 – Vegetative State

⏰ 17:00 (80 minutes) | Post-show Q&A

Vampyr is a mockumentary about stubborn beings that reject the sharp divide between nature and culture and resist changing form. Half dead, half animal, half human, half earth, half alive, these ambiguous beings roam the wind turbine farms built without regulation in Chile—sometimes as disoriented bats, sometimes as workers exhausted from the night shift.

Offering a delirious black comedy about exhaustion and energy, work and rest, Vampyr questions our relationships with the non-human beings on the lands we inhabit and our energy policies for the future.

After “How to Become Stone,” which we staged in 2022 to great acclaim, Manuela Infante returns to Istanbul two years later with “Vampyr,” of which Beykoz Kundura is an international co-producer!


Saturday, May 3 – Vampyr

⏰ 21:00 (90 minutes)

Sunday, May 4 – Vampyr

⏰ 17:00 (90 minutes) | Post-show Q&A

In its new identity, inspired by the memory of the Sümerbank Leather and Shoe Industry Establishment, which became one of the most important symbols of industrialization and domestic production in the history of the Republic, Beykoz Kundura embraces the social values created by the Sümerbank Establishment, serves the creative industries, and continues to give new purpose to the site and to produce. As generations raised with the motto “Domestic goods are the nation’s goods; everyone should use them,” today, in the spaces where we host arts and culture at Beykoz Kundura, we are refreshing our “memory” of Türkiye’s culture of production from an arts and culture perspective.

In past years, we designed panels and programs especially for this week on a variety of themes focusing on local creative practices. After day-long events ranging from Turkish jazz to Turkish contemporary dance, this year we are returning with a more comprehensive program featuring content that actively engages participants.

Beykoz Kundura continues to invite us to remember and embrace our domestic resources. Taking place December 12–15, 2024, the program once again brings Beykoz Kundura productions together with audiences. Alongside a program of Turkish music, this production-focused program spanning the entire weekend helps us develop our creative making skills through workshops from a range of fields. From creative writing to leather and fabric workshops, and from activities that strengthen our collective memory to sustainable gastronomy, it opens up space to deepen our interest in these areas.

Together, we recall the spirit of “Domestic goods are the nation’s goods; everyone should use them,” and as we refresh our collective memory of the culture of production, we reflect and share ideas together about today’s approach to production and its needs. At a time when we perhaps understand the value of domestic production more deeply than ever, we hope that our Domestic Goods Week program will offer hope for the future.

In our panel series “Memory Talks III,” to be held at Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research on Saturday, October 26, 2024, we will discuss Industrial Heritage and the Paper Industry from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic in two separate sessions with Dr. Gülsün Tanyeli, Dr. Mehmet Saner, Ekin Sarıca, Prof. Dr. Burak Asıliskender, Dr. Hakan Koçak, Prof. Dr. Nedret Kuran, Dr. Mehmet Sarıoğlu and Salim Saraç.