Aladag Mountains – How to go:
Turkish Airlines has daily flights in both directions between Istanbul and Kayseri. Once you are in Kayseri, you can reach the Aladag Mountains via Develi or Yahyali.
Where to stay:
If you can Y get to Kayseri, you can stay at a bed & breakfast in the village of Kapuzbasi.
What to eat:
There are rustic restaurants around the ancient Roman fountain in the Kayseri town of Develi.
The dish of choice at these venues shaded by century-old chinars is a kind of flat bread with meat (etli pide) known as Develi civikh.
Venice Biennale opened as usual in June. Artists, curators, journalists and collectors from around the world were in town for the opening on June 4.
The Biennale is also hosting a large and ambitious international exhibition. Curator this year is Bice Curiger, and the theme is ILLUMInations.
Turkey is taking part in the Biennale this year with Ayse Erkmen’s work titled Plan B. Erkmen is known for her works that embody the memory and topography of a city, entering into a dialogue with it and even combining disparate geographies. Among her memorable creations are her Shipped Ships, featuring ferryboats in the cities of Frankfurt, Istanbul and Shingu in Japan, and Sculptures on the Air, a group of 15th and 16th century stone sculptures that floated in the skies of Munster suspended from a helicopter before being returned to their storage facility at the Landesmuseum.
When asked to produce a work for Venice, Erkman put together a project based on the concept of water, which has always intrigued her, and the canals that lace the city. Originally, her plan was to purify the canal water and offer it to Biennale-weary crowds to drink. When this proved unfeasible due to the local bureaucracy and rules of hygiene, she brought plan b into play, from which the installation also takes its name.
Water is again purified, but this time in an aesthetic arrangement in which the entire hall is crisscrossed with colorful pipes from which the water is pumped back into the canals, without being drunk.
