Olimpiyatlar'da çocuk olmak vardı

Olimpiyat heyecanı çocuklar için bambaşka bir anlam ifade ediyor. Tüm Londra’ya yayılan Olimpiyat dükkanlarından yeni doğmuş bir çocuğa da, ilkokul öğrencisine de, içindeki çocuğu beslemek isteyen yetişkine de bir şeyler bulmak mümkün. Tabii bir de Londra 2012’nin kültürel boyutu var. Londra’da devam eden Beautiful Games sergisi hem çocuklara, hem de büyüklere hitap ediyor.

Bir sporcuyu başarılı yapan nedir? Yeni teknolojiler bizi nasıl daha güçlü ve daha hızlı yapar? Fair play’in hassas sınırları nerede biter? Bu ve bunun gibi bir dolu sorunun cevabını öğrenirken bir yandan da Olimpiyat tarihine iz bırakan ödülleri, giysileri ve teknoloji harikası spor aletlerini bir arada görme fırsatı yakaladığınızı düşünün.

Londra sokaklarında yürürken, Olimpiyat ve Paralimpik Oyunları’na günler kaldığını hatırlamamanız imkansız. Sporla ilginiz olsa da, olmasa da Olimpiyat heyecanının parçası olmak için herkese bir şeyler var Londra’da. Özellikle de çocuklara.Yedi yaşından 70 yaşına herkesi kısa bir süreliğine çocuk yapan Londra’nın Çocukluk Müzesi (Museum of Childhood), Olimpiyat Oyunları’nın tarihini ve spor teknolojilerini çocuklara ve çocukluğunu hatırlamaya müzeye gelen yetişkinlere eğlenceli bir şekilde gösteriyor.

Yazının devamı için tıklayın (British Council Blog)

Films tackle honor killings

‘Ateşin Düştüğü Yer’ (Where the Flame Falls) takes a father and his 17-year-old pregnant daughter on a road trip, where the father prepares to execute the unsuspecting daughter

According to numbers released by a rights organizations and compiled from the press, about one woman every day was killed by a family member, husband, ex-husband or partner in Turkey last year.

Government figures are even more drastic, suggesting murders of women have increased ten-fold in the last decade, from 66 in 2002 to around 1,000 each year over the last few years. Thousands are victims of the cultural and social oxymoron of “honor killings.”

Honor killings have always been a major problem in Turkey, especially in the rural areas of eastern and southeastern Turkey. Until quite recently, Turkish law tended to be lenient to honor killers, with many sentences reduced through claims of “provocation.” Thanks to women’s NGOs, devoted followers of the problem in the media, and the country’s quest to enter the European Union, honor killings were deemed a scarlet letter against Turkey, eventually leading to the introduction of a mandatory life sentence for those found guilty of the crime seven years ago.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)

Shakespeare Fest to be celebrated in Turkish

The World Shakespeare Festival is remembering the English playwright through productions in 37 different languages. Stage and screen veteran Haluk Bilginer’s theater group will perform Antony and Cleopatra in Turkish

“Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch of the ranged empire fall!” So will Turkish stage and screen actor Haluk Bilginer cry on stage in London in late May.

These words by the Roman general Mark Antony in the Shakespeare tragedy Antony and Cleopatra will be uttered in Turkish as part of London’s six-week Globe to Globe event, which is staging plays by Shakespeare in 37 languages from Turkish and Swahili to sign language for the World Shakespeare Festival.

The World Shakespeare Festival, celebrating the bard and his work, will be part of the London 2012 Festival, a global extravaganza tying in with the upcoming Summer Olympics in London and celebrating culture through film, theater, music, fashion, visual arts and more.

The festival kicked off last week, coinciding with both Shakespeare’s birthday and the anniversary of his death. The plays in various languages will take place on the south bank of the River Thames at Shakespeare’s Globe, the replica of the original 17th century theater of the English playwright.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)

Damien Hirst: revelations through shock tactics

Damien Hirst is the artist who single-handedly changed the contemporary art scene in Britain in the 1990s. He is the guy who preserved a shark for the sake of art, and who sliced a cow in two. Now, his most famous works appear in a retrospective at London’s Tate Modern

AFP Getty

 Whether you are an art aficionado with old-fashioned conceptions of art or are ready to be swept away by the shock value of contemporary art, it’s hard not be impressed with Damien Hirst. More specifically, it’s hard not to be impressed with the largest U.K. exhibition ever for the man who single-handedly changed the British contemporary art.

The sight of medicine cabinets neatly filled with pharmaceuticals, or the head of a cow with flies crawling all over it may not be your idea of art, but for evoking emotions and raising questions, Damien Hirst’s work would have to be at the top of a list of true works of art that leave an impact. That impact might wear out as soon as you leave the exhibition, but it’s definitely palpable when walking past dead and living butterflies, a shark suspended in formaldehyde.

With his first exhibition Freeze in 1988, Hirst leapt straight into the art scene, initiating a brand of contemporary art that would leave its mark on Britain in the 1990s. Known as the Young British Artists, YBA, or Britart, a generation of artists born in mid-1960s that included Hirst, along with others like Tracey Emin and Carl Freedman, revitalized visual art by incorporating shock elements in their work, using throwaway objects and showcasing their opposition to the system in unprecedented ways.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)