The TCF Istanbul office is getting ready to welcome 24 guests on the TCF Fall 2011 Cultural Tour, which is scheduled to take place on September 12-28. The first leg of the tour (September 12-21) will take participants to Istanbul and explore the Marmara region, while the second leg of the tour (September 20-28) will travel through Central Anatolia. The TCF cultural tours have so far taken 163 influential Americans from different walks of life as guests of TCF on an intensive itinerary highlighting the culture, cuisine, history, art, architecture and natural beauty of Turkey. For photos and comments about past TCF tours, please visit here.

TCF has provided funding to two Polish experts to participate in a conference at the Istanbul Military Museum on September 18-25. Jerzy A. Holc, Head of the Textile Conservation Workshop and Dr. Maria Cybulska at the Department of Textile Architecture at the Technical University of Lodz, Poland, will attend the lectures which focus on the methods of analysis and reconstruction of historial and archeological textiles for documentation, conservation and display.

TCF funding will support the participation of Suzan Bayraktaroglu, Art Historian at the Turkish General Directorate of Foundations, who will present on “Collections of Tradition and Faith,” Sibel Alpaslan Arca, Curator of the Sultans’ Costumes collection at the Topkapi Palace, who will speak on “Textile Findings in the Tombs of Princes of Hagia Sophia Museum,” and Dr. Sumiyo Okumura, TCF Resident Art Historian, who will present on various TCF cultural preservation and education projects at the 14th International Congress on Turkish Art in Paris on September 19-22.

TCF has a become a major sponsor of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco exhibition on "The Art of the Anatolian Kilim: Higlights from the McCoy Jones Collection. The exhibition will remain open from September 10, 2011 - June 10, 2012.

The TCF Istanbul office will host a group organized by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts on September 12. Participants on the “Friends of the Arts of the Islamic World Turkey Trip” will  receive a lecture on the Topkapi Palace and Harem by Dr. Nurhan Atasoy, Senior Scholar in Residence at TCF.

Interested scholars have until October 15 to apply for the TCF Fellowship Program in Turkish Art and Culture. The TCF Fellowship Program's mission is to recognize and assist students and scholars, whose scholastic achievements reflect the commitment of the Turkish Cultural Foundation to research, document, preserve and promote Turkey's cultural heritage. Since the inception of the TCF Fellowship Program in 2008, the Fellowship has been awarded to 38 scholars, covering a wide spectrum of issues related to Turkish culture and art. For more information on how to apply, please visit the Turkish Cultural Foundation website.

Boston, Charlotte, Houston, Seattle and Washington, DC are gearing up for their annual Turkish festivals in October. Celebrating Turkish heritage, art, music, cuisine and culture, Turkish festivals are organized by Turkish American local associations across the United States with major funding support from TCF and promote Turkey to tens of thousands of Americans. For information on Turkish festivals in the United States and abroad, please see the TCF Turkish Festival Newsletter.