Iade-i Ziyaret / Reciprocal Visit was an experimental workshop project made up of photographs, videos, writings, interactions, and talks by participants from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds such as photography, video, music, performance, painting, sociology. It took its name from the culture of ‘reciprocal visit’ that is alive and well in Armenia, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Georgia as well as in many Arab countries and Turkey. This project was called ‘iade-i ziyaret’ because it consisted of one group visiting Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia and of the reciprocal visits of two artists from each country visiting Turkey for the second part of the project. This oncept that was familiar to both, the artists from these countries and to us. It was a concept that connected.

The artistic material was created while participants were on the road, at places where they stopped, visited, or staid.
The route of the workshop, part one took off in Turkey and went through Georgia, Armenia, Georgia again, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. The aim was to let each participant describe his or her experiences in his or her own language. This was to reveal different kinds of language that could be generated within the shared work time in a mobile space serving as a workshop area during a 15-20 hour work schedule. Performing these activities the individuals in the group emphasized different aspects of different things they saw or the same thing they all observed. After each 3 days of intense work in each main town there was an open discussion evening accompanied by a screening. This provideded space for artists’ meetings to discuss further collaborations.

The second part was the final joint work created on the basis of reciprocal artists’ visits to Istanbul. These artists were the ones who have been visited and worked together in their own countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Armenia) in April 2009.