Art and Culture
The role of art and culture is recognised far beyond creative environment and is recognised as having a tangible impact on society today and tomorrow. Metro Istanbul considers reaching all segments of the society and supporting culture and arts as one of its priorities. It transforms its areas into culture-art crossroads that will catch up with the pace of metropolitan life, with the aim of providing the society with the opportunity to see, recognize, love, absorb and monitor art. Metro Istanbul aims to transform its 1 million square meters of indoor space into spaces where Istanbulites can spend pleasant times intertwined with culture and art while they go to their homes, work or loved ones. Aiming to make art accessible to everyone, to meet more people with art and to touch the lives of its passengers in all its events, Metro Istanbul works for brand new artistic events with the feedback it receives from its passengers.
Open-Air Cinema
Metro Istanbul has recently accelerated its efforts to bring art to Istanbulites, opened its doors of its Headquarters in Esenler to Istanbulites in 2021 with the Open Air Cinema Days event. The people of Esenler showed great interest in the event held every Wednesday and Friday in August and September. Metro Istanbul aims to traditionalise the event so it can be held in summer every year.
M7 Line Poses for Photographers before Everyone Else
Metro Istanbul organised a professional photography workshop in partnership with Sony on October 23rd, 2020. In this context, photographers had a chance to see the fantastic venues of M7 Mecidiyekoy-Mahmutbey Metro Line, which is the first fully automated metro line of the European Side, before anyone else. M7 Mecidiyekoy-Mahmutbey Metro Line was commissioned on October 28th, 2020.
Organised by the partnership of Metro Istanbul and Sony, this workshop was held on the M7 Mecidiyekoy-Mahmutbey Metro Line warehouse area and on the plateau consisting of 4 shooting areas established at Tekstilkent Station. Photographers shot the extraordinary places of the line with professional photographers and dancers, using special lighting systems and Sony Alpha equipment.
With the themes of metro musicians, ballet, tango and futurism, professional models and coloured lights were used in the shootings, which were carried out in the modern architectural atmosphere of the warehouse area of the M7 Mecidiyekoy-Mahmutbey Metro Line and Tekstilkent Station. Photographers of the workshop consisted of 40 photographers and shots were taken in groups of 10 people.
Exhibition included the 40 photographs selected among the photographs taken during the workshop. The exhibition, which was first presented at the station where the commissioning ceremony of M7 Line will take place, was then exhibited at all stations of the line as a traveling exhibition.
Inspirational Women's Day Celebration from Metro Istanbul
Metro Istanbul celebrated the March 8th, International Women's Day with events that underline the courage of women and the inspiration this courage gives to their fellows.
On the wall of M2-M7 Connection Tunnel at Mecidiyekoy Station, one of the important transit points of Istanbul, 25 important women of our history, who broke new ground, were brought together with the people of Istanbul through the brush of an artist. With this work, a work consisting of portraits of 25 women who broke new ground in important fields in our history and paved the way for the next generations was inherited to Istanbulites.
Strong Women of Metro Photo Exhibition
Metro Istanbul is operating in the rail systems sector and men all over the world dominate this sector. Metro Istanbul has a motto that women can do any job that is why Metro Istanbul increases the number of female employees day by day. Metro Istanbul organised a photography exhibition called 'Strong Women of Metro', which included 40 women who applied to participate in this event among 429 female employees who are Metro Istanbul employees and successfully carry out their jobs. Female employees attending the event were photographed by Ozgur Soy, General Manager of Metro Istanbul.
Metro Musicians (Middle Title)
The live music activity at Metro Istanbul stations started in 2000 with the commissioning of M2 Taksim-4 Levent Metro Line, as it was known then. A pilot scheme was conducted with a foreign group in Taksim Station, a location where cultural and artistic activities are carried out intensively. The activity, which started with a few music groups to provide pleasant moments to the passengers, now continues at 50 locations within a program divided into three or four time zones a day.
Work permits are issued for metro musicians in quarterly periods, and stations and times are changed every semester. Most of the musicians in the staff perform solo and some of them perform as a group. There are 16 music groups of different genres in the metro.
There are 143 musicians performing at metro stations where Metro Istanbul brings together Istanbulites with music in various genres such as Turkish classical music, classical music, instrumental, Folkloric Black Sea music, jazz music, ethnic, pop music and soundtracks of the movies.
In addition, musicians with disabilities employed by Metro Istanbul within the scope of its social responsibility project and they generally carry out solo performance.
Yaklasim Tuneli (Middle Title)
The construction process of the metro lines contains elements with different stories that many Istanbulites do not know. One of them is approach tunnels. Approach tunnels are tunnels that are bored for logistics purposes during the construction of metro lines and are connected to the main line or secondary roads. Yaklasim Tuneli, which was bored during the construction of the Taksim Station, of which the foundation was laid in 1992, of M2 Yenikapi-Haciosman Metro Line with its current name, is one of the tunnels that is still open. Taksim Yaklasim Tuneli was opened to the service of Istanbulites as an event venue in 2021. Yaklasim Tuneli is waiting to be discovered with its architectural structure, memory and sensory experience.
This tunnel, which is 200 meters long, 4 meters wide and 4.5 meters high, has an important feature in that it opens one end to life going underground, on its tracks, and the other end to Taksim-Harbiye, one of the most active points of Istanbul.
In the middle of the city, Yaklasim Tuneli aims to gather different artistic activities under the same roof with the goal of hosting many art events in the coming periods.
Yaklasim Tuneli is waiting to host those who are impatiently waiting for the event, those who cannot hide their excitement when they enter the exhibition in the tunnel, faces smiling after the event along with the valuable artists.
Yaklasim Tuneli opened its doors with the exhibition named “Finding Healing in Istanbul” which is organised in collaboration with Karsi Sanat and Metro Istanbul A.S. for the first time since 2005. Within the scope of the exhibition, innovative examples and qualified interpretations of many disciplines such as visual arts, exhibitions, music, performance art and digital arts took place.
Yaklasim Tuneli will continue to be an accessible, vibrant and sustainable culture and life platform for everyone with its program covering all disciplines of art.