The Contemporary Istanbul Foundation (CIF) is a not-for-profit organization committed to promoting contemporary art and engaging diverse audiences. By fostering connections between local and global art scenes, CIF aims to raise awareness about critical issues such as democratic rights, freedom of expression, gender equality, and environmental sustainability.
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ABOUT CIF
Focusing on sustainability and participation, CIF designs programs that inspire shared growth and development while collaborating with local and international institutions on education, research, exhibitions, and artist residencies. CIF plays a pivotal role in nurturing creative industries and advancing Turkiye’s cultural landscape.
GOLDEN HORN LIGHT FESTIVAL
Premiere Edition Illuminates Istanbul’s Historic Waterfront
September 20 – October 5, 2025 | Istanbul, Türkiye
About GHLF
The Golden Horn Light Festival, organized by the Contemporary Istanbul Foundation (CIF), will transform Istanbul’s historic waterfront into a luminous, open-air gallery. Showcasing over 20 large-scale light-based and digital artworks, the festival bridges past and future, exploring the city’s rich heritage through innovative installations.
A Vision Rooted in Istanbul’s Identity
Focusing on site-specific, immersive experiences, the festival highlights the Golden Horn’s cultural revival, spanning from Ataturk Bridge to Tersane Istanbul and to Balat Pier. As part of the 20th edition of Contemporary Istanbul, it underscores the city’s evolving role in global contemporary art.
Festival Highlights
The festival will present a diverse selection of over 20 large-scale installations, with 14 to 16 site-specific works created by renowned international and local artists, alongside 5-6 commissioned artworks by emerging talents. These installations are designed to engage with the urban environment and will activate key waterfront locations, including Tersane Istanbul, Balat Pier, Fener Greek School, Zeyrek Cistern, and Sveti Stefan Church. Spanning approximately 3 to 3.5 kilometres along both shores, they aim to transform public spaces into immersive artistic experiences.
The artworks will explore themes of sustainability, historical narratives, and digital innovation, incorporating elements that reflect the Golden Horn’s myths, evolving landscape, and cultural memory. By merging light, architecture, and technology, the festival fosters a dialogue between past and present, redefining public engagement with contemporary art in Istanbul.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
by Helena Nikonole
The Golden Horn has long been an active force in history—its natural harbor shaping commerce, empire, and survival. It sheltered ships, fortified shipyards, and secured Istanbul’s role as a strategic hub. This year’s Golden Horn Light Festival invites us to reconsider this entanglement of landscape and human ambition, now at a moment when humanity itself has become a geological force.
In the Anthropocene, the balance of agency has shifted: humans alter coastlines, extract rare-earth minerals for digital infrastructures, and accelerate climate change. Once a site of historical continuity, the Golden Horn now reflects new vulnerabilities—rising seas, resource depletion, and geopolitical tensions.
This festival explores these interconnections. Works highlighting the Golden Horn’s historical role as a protective force intersect with those confronting today’s ecological fragility. The materiality of technology is central: the same rare-earth minerals that power digital projections link Istanbul’s luminous present to distant landscapes of extraction
Through light, digital art, and site-specific interventions, the festival transforms the Golden Horn into a space for reflection. As we reshape the planet, the Earth responds—this dialogue has never been more urgent.
This festival explores these layers of interconnection. Works that trace the historical function of the Golden Horn as a protective force resonate with pieces that confront today’s ecological vulnerabilities — rising temperatures, vanishing coastlines, and the geopolitics of digital infrastructure. The materiality of technology is central: rare-earth minerals extracted from distant lands fuel the very screens and projectors that illuminate the festival, linking Istanbul’s luminous present to the landscapes of extraction and exploitation worldwide.
Through light, digital art, and site-specific interventions, the festival transforms the Golden Horn into a stage for reflection. It invites us to re-see landscapes as co-authors of history and to acknowledge that, as much as we shape the Earth, it will ultimately respond. In a time of environmental crisis and technological acceleration, this dialogue is more urgent than ever.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Brilliant team behind Golden Horn Light Festival
OPEN CALL FOR EMERGING ARTISTS
Video, Generative AI, 3D Animation & Experimental Moving Image
As part of the Golden Horn Light Festival 2025, we are inviting submissions from emerging artists (under 35 years old) working with experimental video, generative AI, 3D animation, CGI, and hybrid visual forms that explore new directions in moving image.
Selected works will be showcased on the 360° videowall at ArtIstanbul Feshane (resolution: 8928 × 1152 px), a large-scale panoramic screen within one of the Golden Horn’s new cultural hubs. All selected artists will receive an artist fee for their participation.
Deadline: 15. July 2025
Festival dates: September 20 – October 5, 2025
Location: ArtIstanbul Feshane, Golden Horn, Istanbul
Curatorial Vision
The Golden Horn Light Festival is a large-scale public art event that reimagines Istanbul’s historic Golden Horn — once a vital harbor and strategic site of empire — as an active, shifting landscape entangled with history, ecology, and digital infrastructure.
In the age of the Anthropocene, humanity has become a geological force, altering coastlines, mining rare-earth minerals for technological progress, and accelerating ecological change. The festival invites artists to reflect on this entanglement: how environments shape us, and how we, in turn, shape them through technology, ambition, and disruption.
We are looking for video works that resonate with this layered context — whether through speculative aesthetics, poetic abstraction, generative systems, or experimental narratives.
The artworks will explore themes of sustainability, historical narratives, and digital innovation, incorporating elements that reflect the Golden Horn’s myths, evolving landscape, and cultural memory. By merging light, architecture, and technology, the festival fosters a dialogue between past and present, redefining public engagement with contemporary art in Istanbul.