15 May – 21 June 2026 Opening: Friday, 15 May 2026

Curated by Çelenk Bafra, the 7th Mardin Biennial, titled “SKYground,” will unfold throughout the city through exhibitions, site-specific installations, interventions, and performances from 15 May to 21 June 2026 under the sponsorship of PEUGEOT. A member of the International Biennial Association (IBA), the Mardin Biennial has been organized since 2010 by the non-governmental Mardin Cinema Association and co-directed by Döne Otyam and Hakan Irmak.

Located in southeastern Türkiye, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and along the Syrian border, Mardin overlooks the vast Mesopotamian plains. With this edition, the Mardin Biennial will, for the first time in its history, expand beyond the city’s boundaries. Through exhibitions in Upper Mardin, Dara Ancient City, Deyrulzafaran Monastery, and Kızıltepe, the biennial invites audiences to engage with the region’s layered geography and cultural history across Upper Mesopotamia.

The title “SKYground” articulates, in the context of Mardin, the relationships contemporary art establishes between reality and imagination, the material and the spiritual, the political and the poetic. Tracing a line of thought and emotion between sky and ground, the individual and the collective, the past and the future, the biennial proposes a journey across seemingly opposing poles. By juxtaposing “sky” and “ground,” it opens a quiet passage between worlds often assumed to be distant from one another.

This edition is conceived as a multi-layered experience that extends both upward and inward, guided by birds—figures deeply embedded in the region’s natural environment and cultural memory. Carrying the stories etched into Mardin’s stone architecture and borne by the winds unique to its geography, birds move between sky and ground, mapping routes among exhibitions, site-specific installations, and performances across the city.

The biennial’s conceptual compass points to two literary works from the western and eastern traditions of Türkiye that initially appear opposed: Aristophanes’ The Birds and Ferîdüddîn Attâr’s Mantıku’t-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds). In both texts, birds emerge not merely as elements of nature but as symbols of quest, critique, resistance, and transformation. Participating artists from Türkiye and regions with strong cultural ties to it will engage with the bird as a metaphor for freedom, migration, resistance, and imagination through painting, sculpture, video, performance, photography, sound, and site-specific installations.

7th Mardin Biennial: “SKYground”
Concept:
Mardin’s architectural and cultural landscape bears the traces of millennia shaped by Arab, Assyrian, Kurdish, Turkish, and other communities. Long a crossroads of trade, belief, and culture, the city’s intertwined languages, religions, and social structures continue to inform its cultural and political identity. Its elevated position has offered both a strategic vantage point and a symbolic threshold between empires and civilizations, underscoring Mardin’s enduring geopolitical significance. Often described as an open-air museum, the city embodies the architectural and spiritual legacy of ancient Mesopotamia, marked by histories of coexistence and conflict alike.

Within this context, “SKYground” renders visible the relationships contemporary art forges between reality and imagination, the material and the spiritual, the political and the poetic. Establishing a line between sky and ground, the individual and the collective, the past and the future, the 7th Mardin Biennial invites audiences to traverse territories commonly perceived as irreconcilable. By bringing together the “sky” and the “ground” that divide the horizon, the biennial opens a contemplative passage between worlds assumed to be far apart.

Guided by the figure of the bird—central to the region’s cultural memory—this edition calls audiences into a journey that unfolds both upward and inward. Carrying the stories embedded in Mardin’s stones and shaped by the winds of its geography, birds glide between sky and ground, tracing pathways among exhibitions, site-specific installations, and performances across the city. The conceptual framework draws on Aristophanes’ The Birds and Attâr’s The Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-Tayr), two works often associated with Western and Eastern traditions. In Aristophanes’ satire, humans ally with birds to found a utopian city in the clouds, exposing the tensions between idealism and power. Attâr, by contrast, leads birds through seven spiritual valleys, urging the dissolution of the self in pursuit of collective truth. Despite their differing forms and perspectives, both works converge around themes of seeking, journey, and transformation. Read together, they open an intellectual space to reimagine freedom, truth, and new horizons.

Mardin’s nature, architecture, historical depth, and social fabric shape not only the conceptual orientation of “SKYground” but also its sensory atmosphere. The biennial explores ways of constructing new imaginaries and alternative modes of living and thinking in response to contemporary sociopolitical and existential challenges. Through the universal metaphor of birds, it recalls art’s capacity for liberation and transformation while remaining grounded in lived realities. Can we imagine a common ground where freedom and happiness might take root? Does a sky still open on our horizon toward the good and the true?

In pursuit of these questions, the Mardin Biennial—expanding beyond the old city for the first time—invites audiences to explore multiple sites across the region:

Upper Mardin
With its multi-religious, multilingual structure, ancient architecture, and expansive panorama, Upper Mardin remains the biennial’s central site. The sensation of a city suspended between sky and ground becomes a guiding metaphor for the biennial’s intellectual framework.

Kızıltepe
Historically a center of trade and everyday life, Kızıltepe’s dynamic environment—where urban movement, social relations, and political tensions intersect—introduces a critical energy to the biennial.

Dara Ancient City
Marked by archaeological layers and a strong spiritual atmosphere, Dara oscillates between ground and sky, offering a foundation for the biennial’s sensory and conceptual explorations.

Together, these locations form a narrative arc that bridges the mystical and the mundane, the ancient and the contemporary. Artists will variously respond to Aristophanes’ satirical critique of power by imagining alternative social structures, or echo Attâr’s contemplative journey through themes of transformation, introspection, and collective awareness.

In Mardin, the “sky” is woven from imagination and utopia, while the “ground” carries the weight of complex realities. Moving between the horizons of Upper Mardin, the ancient strata of Dara, and the contemporary life of Kızıltepe, the biennial interlaces the material and the imagined, the mythical and the everyday. Together with artists and audiences, the 7th Mardin Biennial unfolds as a journey from Attâr’s seven valleys to Aristophanes’ Nephelokokkygia.

Through “SKYground,” the biennial seeks not only to present artworks but to cultivate a shared space for reflection and transformation—where the tangible meets the transcendent, and imagination becomes fertile ground for truth.