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Sümerbank’s 92nd Founding Anniversary Celebrated at Beykoz Kundura

12 July 2025 Saturday, 12:00

Sümerbank’s 92nd founding anniversary is being celebrated at Beykoz Kundura with a variety of events. Taking place on July 11-12, 2025, the Sümerbank Anniversary Program brings the memory of Sümerbank, one of the most important legacies of the Early Republican Era, back to life at Beykoz Kundura. Sümerbank’s 92nd year will be celebrated at Beykoz Kundura with a Guided Exhibition Tour & Memory Walk, an Exhibition Tour with Factory Retirees, an Archive Visit to the Research Center, a talk on the book “Beykoz Kundura,” and Adult and Children’s Workshops.

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VENUE USE
By presenting your ticket, you may enter Beykoz Kundura 2 hours before the screening, enjoy the food and drink areas, and visit the exhibition Kundura’s Memory: A World Fit into a Factory with a free reservation.
Please note that your event ticket/reservation does not grant access to the film sets located within Beykoz Kundura, and we kindly ask that you do not leave the designated areas.
Filming or photographing with a professional camera is not permitted without written permission. We kindly ask that you leave your recording devices at the security checkpoint at the Beykoz Kundura entrance.

 

GETTING HERE
You can come to the venue by car. Parking is free.

July 12, 2025 12.00-14.30

Sümerbank Recipe House – A Gathering of Memory and Flavor: Circassian Chicken Recipe

Two different recipes, particularly mezes and salads, are selected from those published in the Sümerbank Monthly Industry and Culture Magazine. These recipes are prepared together with participants during the workshop. Participants bring these no-cook recipes to life by chopping and combining the ingredients. The preparations for the workshop are carried out in advance by workshop leader Ceren Bozkurt. When participants arrive at the workshop area, all the necessary ingredients are ready and waiting for them. Participants are actively involved throughout; as they experience putting the recipes into practice, an enjoyable, interactive atmosphere takes shape. Once the dishes are prepared, participants gather at the table to taste the mezes they have made while listening to stories about the history of Sümerbank and Beykoz Kundura. In this way, the workshop offers both a cultural space of sharing that revives a historical memory and a delicious culinary experience. Click here for tickets.
Two different recipes, particularly mezes and salads, are selected from those published in the Sümerbank Monthly Industry and Culture Magazine. These recipes are prepared together with participants during the workshop. Participants bring these no-cook recipes to life by chopping and combining the ingredients. The preparations for the workshop are carried out in advance by workshop leader Ceren Bozkurt. When participants arrive at the workshop area, all the necessary ingredients are ready and waiting for them. Participants are actively involved throughout; as they experience putting the recipes into practice, an enjoyable, interactive atmosphere takes shape. Once the dishes are prepared, participants gather at the table to taste the mezes they have made while listening to stories about the history of Sümerbank and Beykoz Kundura. In this way, the workshop offers both a cultural space of sharing that revives a historical memory and a delicious culinary experience. Click here to register.
Drawing inspiration from past designs, participants will create their own leather pieces, such as the coin purse pictured below. This workshop is fully booked.
The Embroidering Memory Workshop is a photo embroidery workshop that seeks to connect with the present moment by intervening, through embroidery, in the everyday life, places and people captured in old photographs. Workshop participants combine the photograph’s power as a “reminder” with the joy of re-creating it. Participants are asked to bring a photograph to work on during the workshop. This can be a shot from their own album or a photograph found at a flea market or a second-hand bookshop. While working on the photograph they have brought, participants talk about its story and the aspects they would like to highlight. All other materials needed for the embroidery are provided by us. Workshop content: Introductions, sharing the stories behind the selected photographs, learning simple embroidery techniques to get started, and embroidery. The workshop lasts approximately 2 hours. Once participants begin their embroidery, the workshop leader works with each of them individually and helps their compositions take shape. Click here to register.
July 12, 2025 14.30-15.30

3, 2, 1... Draw!

Before a film is shot, the characters are defined, the script is written, and all of this is planned together with the setting. Setting, script and characters first come together on a storyboard. Also used as a film set, Beykoz Kundura is famous for its cinema as well. In this workshop, after talking about Beykoz Kundura’s memory, we will create our own character designs. After sharing sheets featuring different spaces at Beykoz Kundura with the participants, we will fill a blank storyboard with our characters and our script. Click here to register.
Beykoz Kundura is one of Türkiye’s leading shoe manufacturers, a brand that specialized particularly in leather shoes. The posters designed to sell these shoes are also quite eye-catching. In this workshop, we will first examine old advertising posters and talk about the brand’s culture and history. Then, using a variety of collage papers, photographs from the archive, colored paper and pencils, we will design our own handmade advertising posters for shoes. Click here to register.
Throughout the ages, shoes have served both as a necessity and as a means of display. They have constantly taken on different forms and designs. In this workshop, we will focus on new functions and new designs. How, you ask? We will design shoes for fantastical creatures! For a vampire, which matters more: style or comfort? And what about a troll who walks for miles on its short little legs? After talking about fictional characters and identifying their needs, we will sketch our designs on paper and then make models of them out of clay. Click here to register.
Friday, July 11, 19:30 – 20:30

Guided Exhibition Tour and Memory Walk

On Friday, July 11, accompanied by a professional guide, we will have the opportunity to explore together Kundura Hafıza’s permanent exhibition, “Kundura’s Memory: A World Fit into a Factory,” as well as the factory buildings where production once took place at Beykoz Kundura, the production tools, and the transformation of the old structures. Visitors attending the event will be treated to a complimentary dessert when they dine at Demirane Restaurant. Click here to register.
On the occasion of Sümerbank’s 92nd anniversary, join us for a tour of our exhibition, drawn from the Kundura Hafıza collection, and of the Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası (Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory), one of the most important industrial heritage sites of the Early Republican Era, as we listen to the stories of the factory’s retired workers! Click here to register.
At the Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research Center, located in the former daycare building of the Sümerbank Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası (Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory) and opening soon, we will meet with factory retirees and then visit the archive. The Center consists of an archive focusing on the industrial history of the Ottoman and Republican periods, with its main collection centered on the Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası as well as other Sümerbank and Etibank factories, and a specialized library. Click here to register.
Hakan Koçak, author of the forthcoming book "Beykoz Deri ve Kundura Fabrikası Tarihi" (History of the Beykoz Leather and Shoe Factory), will give a talk as part of Sümerbank’s 92nd founding anniversary. In the conversation, in which Koçak will be joined by the book’s editor İsmet Akça, they will discuss the history of Beykoz Kundura from the early 19th century to the present day, the Sümerbank legacy, and the making of the book. Click here to register.
On Sümerbank’s 92nd founding anniversary, journalist and writer Deniz Zeyrek brings back to life, through his personal experiences, an institution etched into our memories. In this special talk titled "Sümerbank in Our Lives," he sheds light on the egalitarian, accessible opportunities Sümerbank offered at many turning points, from primary school desks to university years, from boarding school memories to working life, as well as on its mission in the early Republican era. Click here to register.