Bringing contemporary art production together with the Kundura Hafıza Archive since 2022, Vardiya is now expanding its scope to invite researchers, artists and cultural professionals to think together with the archive.
The program, which invites researchers and artists working in different disciplines in Türkiye, was conceived as a sequence of work shifts that protect, watch over and keep vigil over the archive.
The program takes its name from “vardiya,” a word adapted into Turkish from the Venetian Italian vàrdia and the Italian guardia, as well as the Italian verb guardare, meaning “to protect, to watch over, to keep watch.” It was designed around the shift work system in which workers hand over their watch to one another.
Vardiya was born from the coming together of Beykoz Kundura’s overall innovative and research-driven approach and Kundura Hafıza’s approach of seeking out local wisdom and safeguarding what has been lost. Through Vardiya, Kundura Hafıza entrusts its archive to the researchers and artists who come to take their shift.
By granting artists the authority to interpret within the framework of collecting and compiling—the principle at the heart of archiving—Vardiya creates a field of research through artistic practice and opens the archive to the participation of and access by artists.
In the working phase, which covers set periods at certain times of the year, the researchers and artists selected for Vardiya through an open call hand the archive over to the person taking the next shift at each changeover. How this handover takes place is decided by the participants themselves as part of this creative process. Perhaps a note, perhaps a find from the archive…
The concepts and practices that emerge from this shift-based system of work and research are presented in a public program. In a setting where they meet guests, the researchers and artists are asked how they deepened their research questions during this period, what ideas took shape in their minds, what inspired them, how they approached the archive, and what feelings the time they spent in the archive left with them. Taking the form of a conversation, this gathering becomes a public sharing of research practice with the archive.
Aiming to bring different disciplines together, to engage with the archive and to carry the knowledge accumulated in the past into the present day, the Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research Center will provide support and workspace for original projects in its focus areas of industrialization, cultural heritage preservation, urban memory and oral history.
Researchers and artists will be accepted into the program through an open call.
A total of six participants, two from each project field, will receive support of 20,000 TL.
Project applications will open on January 16 and close on February 25, 2026. For researchers whose project applications are accepted, carrying out their archival work during one of the research periods of April 6–12, April 13–19 or April 20–26 and presenting the results of their work at the session to be held on June 13 is mandatory.
Ottoman and Early Republican Period Industrialization Studies
Covers studies focusing on industrialization efforts carried out by the public or private sector during the Ottoman and Republican periods, industrial centers, production systems, labor movements, labor history and socio-cultural activities.
Cultural Heritage Preservation and Urban Memory Studies
Covers projects developed to enable academic studies on researching and documenting Türkiye’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage, industrial heritage in particular, and on ensuring its sustainability through adaptive reuse.
Oral History Studies
Covers oral history studies that will strengthen the ties between individual and collective memory and bring to the literature new sources and testimonies that written history cannot reach.
Pre-selection: Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research team
Evaluation jury: Merve Akar Akgün (Editor-in-Chief, Art Writer & Critic), Prof. Dr. Burak Asiliskender (Academic), Assoc. Prof. Dr. İsmet Akça (Political Scientist), S. Buse Yıldırım (Documentary Artist, Curator & Culture Professional)
Applications open: January 16, 2026
Application deadline: February 25, 2026, 21:00 (Türkiye time, GMT+3)
Announcement of results: March 9, 2026 (participants will be notified by email)
Research periods (7 days): April 6–12, April 13–19, April 20–26
Presentation day: June 13, 2026
Applications are open to researchers from all disciplines related to the specified project areas, and to artists with a research-oriented practice working in fields close to these areas.
Support is open to individual applications only.
Researchers and artists are expected to work at the Kundura Hafıza Archive from 10:00 to 18:00 for 7 days during their selected period.
Projects must be written in Turkish.
Support is given only to non-profit projects.
Researchers and artists may apply with only one project per application period.
Applicants whose projects are not accepted may apply again in future rounds.
Applications are accepted only through the online form available at www.beykozkundura.com.
Additional documents or an interview may be requested for selected projects if needed.
Researchers and artists whose applications are accepted will be notified by email on March 9, 2026.
Researchers and artists who are selected for the program and accept their place are asked to sign a good-faith agreement with Kundura Hafıza. (This is an informal agreement setting out good faith, intended to prevent the difficulties caused when participants confirm their place and then fail to attend without notice or explanation.)
If a researcher or artist whose application has been accepted withdraws from the project before completing their Vardiya, the support funds provided must be returned.
All questions about the process are handled by email. hafiza@beykozkundura.com — before writing to this address, you may wish to check the FAQ page first.
Researchers and artists work in the archive for 7 days during one of the specified periods in April.
During the 7-day shift, each participant carries out research to develop their research project proposal and, in keeping with the “Vardiya” (shift) working system, hands over any note or find that left a mark on them or inspired them during the process to the participant starting the next research “Vardiya.” Encouraging a creative connection with the archive, “Vardiya” is based on the principle of taking turns on watch and on collective collaboration.
In keeping with Kundura Hafıza’s approach, researchers are encouraged to record their feelings and observations during this one-week period in a diary, field notebook or similar tools, and to deepen a process-oriented research approach. While this is not mandatory, it is preferred.
At the end of the shift, the researcher submits a copy of the notes kept during the research to Kundura Hafıza, and the support payment is made by bank transfer within the following 5 business days.
Researchers and artists complete their shift at the end of their week of archival work by preparing a report of no more than 1500 words and leaving a copy for the researcher who follows them and for the institution.
Projects are shared with the public through 15-minute presentations at a session to be held on June 13, 2026.
20.000 TL in funding for each selected research project.
Travel and meal support throughout the 7 days spent in the archive.
Access to nearly 20.000 archival and library resources at the Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research Center.
He is a Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at Abdullah Gül University, and also serves as Advisor to the Rector for Education.
He completed his undergraduate studies in Public Administration (French) at Marmara University
Born in Istanbul in 1984, she studied sociology at the Sorbonne in Paris and completed a master’s degree in the Sociology of Contemporary Art. While living in Paris, she worked as a freelance editor for various publications including Crash Magazine, l’Interview, l’Officiel, Cahiers du Cinéma and Doolittle. Today she is Editor-in-Chief of the Istanbul-based Unlimited Publications, home to five different publications. She also leads workshops on writing about contemporary art and works as a translator.
S. Buse Yıldırım is a documentary artist, curator and cultural professional working at the intersection of visual anthropology, memory studies and creative research.
He is a Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at Abdullah Gül University, and also serves as Advisor to the Rector for Education. He previously served as the (founding) Head of the Department of Architecture. His work focuses on architectural theory and design; space, place-making, and spaces and identities in transformation. He has published widely on architecture and identity, the concepts of space and place, and the transformation of spaces and cities. He is among the authors of the design and implementation processes for the adaptive reuse and restoration of the Sümerbank Kayseri Textile Factory as the AGÜ Sümer Campus.
İSMET AKÇA, Associate Professor İsmet Akça completed his undergraduate studies in Public Administration (French) at Marmara University and received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. In 2002–2003 he was a visiting researcher at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at New York University. He worked as a research assistant in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University from 1998 to 2002, and from 2002 to 2017 as a faculty member in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Yıldız Technical University, until he was dismissed from the university on February 7, 2017, together with fellow signatories, for having signed the Academics for Peace petition. In 2018–2019 he was a visiting research scholar affiliated with the Carnegie Middle East Center, and in 2022–2024 he continued his work as a remote visiting academic at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London. From 2018 to 2022 he served as General Director of the History Foundation (Tarih Vakfı).
Born in Istanbul in 1984, she studied sociology and completed an MFA in the Sociology of Contemporary Art at the Sorbonne in Paris. For ten years in Paris she worked as a freelance editor for Crash Magazine, l’Interview, l’Officiel, Cahiers du Cinéma, Doolittle and many other publications. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Istanbul-based Unlimited Publications, which publishes five magazines. She also leads workshops on writing about contemporary art.
S. Buse Yıldırım is a documentary artist, curator and cultural professional working at the intersection of visual anthropology, memory studies and creative research. Her practice focuses on forms of storytelling grounded in observation, fieldwork and interdisciplinary methods. In the film and curatorial projects she develops through her research-based approach, she works with concepts such as cultural performance, intergenerational memory, oral history and biocultural heritage. She approaches documentary not merely as a film genre, but as an inclusive artistic space for thinking, research and social dialogue. She received her bachelor’s degrees in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London, and in Documentary Filmmaking from ESEC in Paris, and her master’s degree in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität Berlin. Alongside her artistic work, she is actively involved in designing learning environments and curatorial programs that support research-based art projects and creative cultural policies.
Pre-selection: Kundura Hafıza Archive and Research team
Evaluation jury: Merve Akar Akgün (Editor-in-Chief, Art Writer & Critic), Prof. Dr. Burak Asiliskender (Academic), Assoc. Prof. Dr. İsmet Akça (Political Scientist), S. Buse Yıldırım (Documentary Artist, Curator & Culture Professional)
