Europalia 2015 Festival To Connect Turkey And Belgium

Turkish arts and culture is set to make a splash in Belgium -- and the rest of Europe -- next year at Europalia, an international arts festival dedicated to the cultural heritage of a different country in each edition.

Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ömer Çelik was in Brussels earlier this week to speak at the first news conference for “Europalia Turkey,” the 25th edition of the biennial event, set to get underway in October 2015 in the Belgian capital and several other European cities, the Cihan news agency reported Tuesday.

First held in 1969, Europalia offers a comprehensive program in each edition to cover a wide range of fields from music, fine arts, photography, cinema, theater and dance to literature, architecture, design, fashion and gastronomy, according to the festival's website, http://www.europalia.eu.

Belgian Energy Minister Marie-Christine Marghem and Europalia International President Georges Jacobs De Hagen were also among the speakers at Tuesday's news conference, Cihan reported. The four-month festival will follow on the heels of the 50th anniversary of labor immigration from Turkey to Belgium in 2014, “which is a nice coincidence,” Marghem told reporters.

The festival's previous edition, which ran from October 2013 to January 2014, featured India as its guest.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)