This year, we are celebrating International Museum Day, designated as 18 May by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), at the 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory with a panel discussion, memory walk, music recital, and workshops. We invite you to join us for these events.

In the panel discussion moderated by Aylin Tekiner, Yaşar Adanalı and Liana Kuyumcuyan from Postane, and Sercan Aygül and Hande Alpaslan from Nesin Foundation Moda63, will share their experiences on the re-functionalisation of spaces and memory-making practices. In addition to the panel, you are welcome to attend a music recital with Alen Zinzal, the Pangaltı Memory Walk with Karin Şeşetyan, and workshops.

Wednesday, May 20 16:00

 

23.5 Guided Tour

During the guided tour of 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory, the participants will visit the thematic rooms of 23.5 and talk about Hrant Dink's life and struggle, the founding story of 23.5, the memory of Sebat Building, minority rights and human rights.

    • Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2026, 16:00–17:00
    • Venue: 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory
    • Registration: Please fill in the form to register.
    • The tour is limited to 15 participants.
    • The guided tour lasts approximately 1 hour.
    • The event will be held in Turkish.
Wednesday, May 20 18.00


Music Recital with Alen Zinzal 
You are invited to a music recital by musician Alen Zinzal, accompanied by the harmonium housed in the Atlantis Civilisation Room at the 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory. Participants will have the opportunity to discover Armenian folk songs through an intimate recital that flows through the rooms and halls of the 23.5.

  • Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2026, 18:00–18:30
  • Venue: 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory
  • Registration: Please fill in the form to register.
  • The capacity is limited to 30 participants.
  • The recital lasts 30 minutes.
Thursday, May 21 14.30

Pangaltı Memory Walk with Karin Şeşetyan 

Joining Karin Şeşetyan on the Pangaltı Memory Walk, we will visit the former homes of Armenian intellectuals arrested in Pangaltı on 24 April 1915, Haçik İdareciyan, Sarkis Minasyan, Aram Andonyan, Rupen Sevag, Taniel Varujan, Dikran Sıvacıyan, and Gomidas Vartabed, and hear their stories.

  • Date: Thursday, 21 May 2026, 14:30–16:00
  • Venue: 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory
  • Registration: Please fill in the form to register.
  • The memory walk is limited to 15 participants.
  • The memory walk lasts approximately 1,5 hours.
  • The event will be held in Turkish.
Thursday, May 21 17.00


The New Story of a Space: The Cases of Postane and Moda63

Spaces live, transform, and acquire new meanings over time. But when a space transforms, what remains? What is lost? How can it be re-functionalised while preserving its memory, and how can that memory be turned into a story? Postane, which came to life in the historic British Post Office building in Galata, and Moda63, the Nesin Foundation’s new memory space transformed from a house in Moda that bore witness to earlier eras, represent two distinct experiences of re-functionalisation. In this panel discussion, moderated by Aylin Tekiner, Yaşar Adanalı and Liana Kuyumcuyan from Postane, and Sercan Aygül and Hande Alpaslan from Moda63, will discuss the memory-making processes of these spaces, their journeys of transformation, and their community-building practices as dynamic gathering points.

  • Date: Thursday, 21 May 2026, 17:00–19:00
  • Venue: 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory
  • Registration: Please fill in the form to register.
  • The discussion will be held in hybrid format (in-person and via Zoom).
  • In-person capacity is limited to 40 participants per session.
  • The event will be held in Turkish.
Friday, May 22 14.00


Memory Sites Workshop

In this workshop, participants will seek the answers of such questions by exploring memory sites and museums that deal with difficult pasts in different geographies. The workshop will also feature inspiring memorialization projects that are being conducted by a range of organizations. The workshop offers interactive activities, and the participants will have the opportunity to benefit from audiovisual and text materials.

  • Date: Friday, 22 May 2026, 14:00–16:00
  • Venue: 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory
  • Registration: Please fill in the form to register.
  • The workshop is limited to 20 participants.
  • The workshoplasts approximately 2 hours.
  • The event will be held in Turkish.
  

Sercan Aygül
Sercan Aygül has spent many years working in civil society, cultural production, and space-focused initiatives. He currently manages construction and real estate processes at the Nesin Foundation, developing projects on restoration, transformation, and memory spaces. With a particular interest in urban memory, everyday life culture, and the re-functionalisation of historic buildings, Aygül has recently been working on "Moda63," a memory house project located in Moda that aims to evoke urban life between 1960 and 2000 through objects, letters, and personal narratives.

Hande Alpaslan
Born in 1988, Hande Alpaslan studied Marine Biology at Istanbul University. She is an artist working with themes of nature and animals. She entered the professional art world in 2017 while collaborating with American artist Mark Dion at the 15th Istanbul Biennial. When her first watercolour works, produced during the Biennial, were included in the exhibition, she began focusing more intensively on her practice. Since then, Alpaslan has produced calendars, educational sets, illustrated books, and textile patterns for international projects, continuing to express her fascination with nature through painting. For the past year and a half, she has also been serving as the coordinator of the Moda63 project, an initiative of the Nesin Foundation.

Liana Kuyumcuyan
Liana Kuyumcuyan (Istanbul, 1994) is a doctoral candidate at the National Technical University of Athens. Her work has been exhibited at Museum MACAN (2025), the 4th Larnaca Biennial (2025), and Base Milano as part of Milan Design Week (2024). She designed the exhibitions The Future of Listening (Istanbul Bakırköy Sanat, 2026); Postane: An Archaeology of a Building (2023); and 1994–2024: 30 Years of Civil Society and Politics with Heinrich Böll Stiftung Istanbul and Turkey (2024). She is the co-author of the book Postane: An Archaeology of a Building (2024). She served as editor of Design Unlimited magazine (2019–2024), co-edited the Pedestrian Modernities issue of Dragomanen (2025), and was guest editor of the Spatial Justice and Beyoğlu issue of beyond.istanbul (2020).

Yaşar Adanalı
Urban planner and social entrepreneur. Founding director of Postane, which works at the intersection of social benefit and ecological regeneration. He served as director of the Space and Justice Association during its first five years, an organisation he co-founded. Between 2010 and 2021, he taught courses on participatory planning and community-based housing at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Darmstadt. He was part of the volunteer design team behind Umut Evleri, Turkey's first mass housing project developed through participatory planning methods. In 2016, he was selected as a fellow by the Ashoka Foundation for social entrepreneurship, and in 2019 by the Bertha Foundation for his work on housing justice. Under the name "Urbanist," he produces content on spatial justice, urban memory, and cultural heritage. He lives in Beyoğlu with Hektor, Düdük, and Luci.

Alen Zinzal 
Alen Zinzal was born in Istanbul in September 2004. He has been immersed in music since 2016, composing his own pieces and singing in choirs since 2019. Since 2023, he has been pursuing an undergraduate degree in Music Technology at Istanbul Technical University. Through Ortak Stüdyo, a collective studio he co-founded on İstiklal Avenue, he puts into practice his vision of collaborative production across musical and non-musical fields alike. He perceives life musically, and continues to reflect on the connection between sound and other phenomena of existence.
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Aylin Tekiner
Founding director of the Memory Museum for Historical Justice, an artist, and human rights advocate. In her artistic practice, she works on the concepts of collective memory and historical justice with a focus on mass violence and collective traumas. She received her PhD from The Faculty of Educational Sciences, The Department of Cultural Foundations of Education at Ankara University in Turkey in 2008. Aylin has a book titled “Atatürk Statues: Cult, Aesthetics, Politics”, which was published in 2010-2014-2021 by İletişim Yayınları (Turkey), based on her doctoral thesis. She worked on shadow theater techniques during her post-doc time at the Yale School of Drama between 2015-2016. Having held solo exhibitions and participating in group exhibitions in her country and abroad, Aylin is a member of Center for The Study of Social Difference at Columbia University as well as Çocuklarız Bir Aradayız initiative that focuses on the 1980 Coup D’état in Turkey.

Karin Şeşetyan
After retiring from her faculty post in 2023 at Boğaziçi University’s Department of Earthquake Engineering, Karin Şeşetyan began volunteering on various projects at the Hrant Dink Foundation. Her interest in Armenian history first developed through her research into historical earthquakes in Anatolia as traced in Armenian-language sources. At the Hrant Dink Foundation, she now works on projects related to more recent periods as well. She continues to publish her writings in Agos newspaper under the series titled Karanlıktan Günışığına Arşiv Belgelerinde Ermeni Kurumları..