Natural pigments developed at the TCF Cultural Heritage Preservation and Natural Dyes Laboratory (TCF-DATU) under ARMAGGAN sponsorship will be on display at ARMAGGAN Art & Design Gallery's Nature's Colors-Doğanın Renkleri" exhibition. The research team at TCF DATU created a line of 30 organic pigments for specific use in the arts and cultural preservation. The pigments were generated from plants, insects, sea shells and natural organic lake pigments and are completely chemicals free. A creative project developed by ARMAGGAN Art & Design Gallery introduced the pigments to a select group of painters with a commission to create one painting for the " exhibition. The exhibition is now scheduled to open September 8 at the gallery and will remain on view until November 16. The color palette of the natural dyes proved both a challenge and a creative opportunity for the artists. The results of the artists' experimentation with natural dyes will be juxtaposed with their works created with oil or paints dyes at the exhibition. The exhibition's featured artists are Sıla Gür, Nilüfer Tokay, Aysun Bozuklu, Nilgün Sabar, Betül Cankara, Åževket Arık, Sinem Kaya, Güneş Özmen, Neşe Çoğal, Hüseyin Rüstemoğlu, Doruk Pireci, İrem Çamlıca and Desen Halıçınarlı. In addition to use in new artistic creations, the pigments will also find application in the restoration of historical paintings, iconography and wall paintings which were created with natural dyes.

The 2016-2017 lecture season of the TCF Cullinary Arts Center in Istanbul will begin at the end of September and will be announced shortly. This season’s seminars will be grouped under “Ingredients Unique to Turkish Cuisine” and “Turkish Regional Cuisine.”

Past YESAM lectures are periodically uploaded for online viewing in the TCF Video Gallery.

Turkish cooking traditions are highlighted every month with the YESAM Recipe of the Month. This month’s recipe features “Bulgur Balls with Tomato Garlic Sauce.”

YESAM is preparing two cultural trips for the fall. The first trip will be to the city of Çorum to explore the region’s culinary culture, discover Hittite period food traditions, and taste the city’s famous “leblebi” or roasted chickpeas.  The second trip will be to the region of Ayvalık for the annual olive harvesting celebrations. Details on both trips will be available soon on the YESAM website.

A TCF grant will underwrite a series of music concerts in the U.S. and Canada presented by Istanbulive VII, an annual celebration of Turkish music produced by Serdar Ilhan and Mehmet Dede. Launched in 2009 and supported by TCF for several years, Istanbulive VII will feature the U.S. debut of the Taksim Trio with concerts at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto on October 6, the Berklee College of Music in Boston on October 7, and the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre New York on October 9. The Taksim Trio features Hüsnü Senlendirici on the clarinet, Ismail Tunçbilek on the bağlama, and Aytaç Dogan on the kanun.

TCF provided a grant to the Museum of Fine Art in Houston to support the 4th Annual Houston Turkish Film Festival, an event which has enjoyed TCF support since its inception. The festival will take place September 29-October 2, 2016, and showcase an impressive line-up of Turkish films including Sivas, directed by Kaan Müjdeci; Ivy, directed by Tolga Karacelik; and the popular documentary The Cats of Istanbul, directed by Ceyda Torun.

The Golden Age of King Midas, a world premier exhibition at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, continues to be on display through November 27, 2016. Supported by a major grant by TCF, the exhibition features artifacts unearthed in the main tumulus in Gordion, as well as a number of important objects from the tumuli in Lydia and Lycia. These pieces appear alongside select examples from the Penn Museum's own collections.

Makam New York's program Turkish Story Time, supported by a TCF grant, continues to present weekly programs in New York City. Turkish Story Time brings children and their caregivers together to learn about Turkish culture through reading stories in Turkish, learning songs, rhymes, and riddles, introducing instruments and advancing literacy. The program is recorded every Thursday at 4:00 pm at Book Culture on Columbus in New York City and is open to the public. The recordings, stories and materials are available on Makam New York’s website.

The Mehmet Polat Trio (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellows-2016) has embarked on their U.S. Summer and Fall Tour. The tour includes twenty-six concert performances, four educational workshops at universities, and four house concerts in cities across the U.S. including New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Richmond, Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. The Mehmet Polat Trio features 2016 TCF Cultural Exchange Fellows: Mehmet Polat, an oud player and composer; Victor Sams, a ngoni and percussion player; and Pelin Başar, a ney player. The group combines Anatolian, Balkan, and Middle Eastern music styles with African patterns.

New York based music photographer Ebru Yildiz (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2014) published a book titled "We’ve Come So Far: The Last Days of Death by Audio" in August. The book is a collection of on-stage and behind the scenes photos of bands performing during the final days of the Williamsburg concert venue Death by Audio. The photos can be found in an article published in The New Yorker in July.

Media artist Refik Anadol (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2013) gave a lecture entitled "Architectural Intelligence and Media Architecture” at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow. At the lecture, he discussed how architecture, digital technologies and computing methods can interact with one another.

İdil Kemer (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016), a dance artist and movement/improvisation teacher, participated in the Dance OMI residency program in Ghent, New York from July 19 to August 8, 2016.

Dancer and choreographer Lerna Babikyan (TCF Cultural Exchange Fellow-2016) is participating in the residency program of Escola Estudio Raizvanguarda from August 29 to September 30, 2016.