Visiting a biennial in Çanakkale does not mean entering a single museum and leaving through the same door a few hours later. The route may take you to a stone building once used as an acorn warehouse, a house tucked into the old bazaar, the upper floor of a working fish market, or a contemporary museum set within one of the world’s most layered archaeological landscapes.
Running from October 10 to November 20, 2026, the 10th Çanakkale Biennial embraces that dispersed, layered geography. Titled “Metcezir / Ebb & Flow,” this edition brings together the work of more than 60 international artists across 15 exhibition and event venues. The program stretches from Çanakkale city center to Troy, and from Assos to Küçükkuyu, with water, soil, memory, and transformation forming its shared conceptual ground.
That is where one of the Biennial’s most compelling ideas begins: to see the art, you also have to move through the landscape itself.
What Is a Biennial, and What Makes the Çanakkale Biennial Different?
The word biennial literally refers to an event held every two years. In contemporary art, it usually describes a large-scale exhibition or cultural program that brings together artists, curators, public events, and multiple venues within a particular city or region.
But every biennial takes on the character of the place where it happens. The Venice Biennale has its national pavilions, the Istanbul Biennial has its own evolving relationship with the city, while the Çanakkale Biennial has long been shaped by the area’s archaeology, everyday life, urban fabric, and rural geography.
The first Çanakkale Biennial was held in 2010. Over the years, exhibitions have moved beyond conventional art spaces and into buildings and neighborhoods already embedded in the city’s daily life. In its 10th edition, that approach becomes even more visible.
“Ebb & Flow”: What Remains When the Water Recedes?
This year’s title, Ebb & Flow, carries a particularly strong image. The regular rise and fall of water reminds us that a coastline is never entirely fixed; each return conceals certain traces and reveals others.
In Çanakkale, water has never been merely scenic. The strait, the Aegean, the islands, and the people who have crossed these waters for thousands of years have continuously shaped the region’s history. From the stories of Troy to the life of today’s port, water has functioned both as a boundary and as a point of connection.
Placing soil, memory, and transformation alongside water gives the theme an even deeper relationship with the region. In a landscape where archaeological layers accumulate beneath the ground, soil preserves the past while the sea connects it to elsewhere. Memory is constantly reconstructed between the two.
Seen this way, Ebb & Flow becomes more than the title of a biennial. It becomes a useful way of reading Çanakkale itself.
Not a Single Museum, but the City Itself
The venues of the 10th Çanakkale Biennial include purpose-built cultural spaces as well as places drawn directly from everyday urban life.
Among them are the first floor of the Fish Market, one of the city’s most immediate points of contact with the sea; Mavi Ev, located within the bazaar and carrying traces of local cultural memory; ÇB Park, beside the Friday Market and set to host a new public artwork; and ASTİM, an industrial area where a new generation of artists and designers has increasingly begun to establish itself.
This creates a relationship very different from simply placing an exhibition on top of a city. Art enters spaces where life is already happening — places where people shop, work, move, meet, and encounter the sea.
While looking for artwork, you also begin to read the city differently.
From MAHAL to the Museum of Troy: When Venues Carry Their Own Memory
MAHAL, one of the venues most closely associated with Çanakkale’s contemporary art scene, is located in the area once used for acorn storage. Nearby StudioMAHAL and FeHAN are also part of the 10th Biennial.
These buildings do not erase their past to create a neutral white cube. Stone, brick, former industrial use, and traces of the city’s commercial history remain visible. The relationship between the artwork and the building becomes part of the exhibition itself.
The Korfmann Library of the Troia Foundation creates another kind of context entirely. With its longstanding connection to archaeology and Troy research, a work encountered here exists not only inside a physical building, but within an environment shaped by scholarship and cultural memory.
And then there is one of the most significant stops on the route: the Museum of Troy.
The Museum of Troy: Ancient History and Contemporary Art Under One Roof
Visiting the Museum of Troy as part of the Biennial immediately shifts the scale of the journey. The museum presents the archaeological heritage of Troy and the wider Troad through contemporary museology, while the nearby Archaeological Site of Troy reveals thousands of years of settlement layers in the open landscape.
The Biennial’s presence here creates something more interesting than a simple contrast between “old” and “new.” Troy has always been a place retold and reinterpreted: through Homeric epic, archaeological excavation, literature, cinema, and every generation’s attempt to make sense of the story again.
Contemporary art adds another layer to that history of reinterpretation. Archaeological objects arrive in the present from the past, while contemporary artists bring today’s questions about memory, place, transformation, and nature back into the same geography.
During the Biennial, a visit to the Museum of Troy gains a temporary second perspective, one that sits alongside its archaeological and historical identity.
More Than 60 Artists, and No Single Point of View
The artist list for the 10th Çanakkale Biennial makes it clear that Ebb & Flow is not being approached through one aesthetic language.
The program brings together more than 60 international artists from different generations and practices, including Füreya Koral, Edward Burtynsky & Alkan Avcıoğlu, Elif Uras, Burçak Bingöl, Ayça Telgeren, Aylin Zaptçıoğlu, Can Altay, Lara Ögel, Leyla Pekmen, Meral Değer, Özün Işır, René Levi, and Volkan Aslan, among many others.
Photography, video, sculpture, ceramics, installation, and other contemporary practices come together across the program, making the Biennial less like one exhibition and more like a network of intersecting perspectives.
For that reason, trying to complete every venue in a single day may miss part of the experience. This is a Biennial that makes more sense when allowed to unfold over time.
Turning the Biennial into a North Aegean Cultural Route
The Biennial’s geography almost suggests its own travel itinerary.
A first day can be spent in central Çanakkale, moving between MAHAL, StudioMAHAL, FeHAN, Mavi Ev, the Fish Market, and other urban venues. Another day can be devoted to the Museum of Troy and the Archaeological Site of Troy, allowing the Biennial visit to open into a broader encounter with the region’s archaeological past.
Continue south, and the route reaches Assos, Küçükkuyu, and Adatepe.
This is where the idea of “things to do in Çanakkale” moves beyond the usual checklist. Contemporary art, archaeology, urban memory, and the North Aegean landscape begin to function not as separate categories, but as parts of the same journey.
From Homer to the Present: A Gathering at İda Blue
Even before the Biennial officially opened, İda Blue became the setting for a gathering that brought many of the region’s cultural layers together around a single table.
On September 25, Prof. Dr. Rüstem Aslan joined guests in Adatepe for a talk and book signing centered on Odysseus: Hoş Geldin Yabancı. Moving from Troy and the Homeric epics to the continuing journey of Odysseus through contemporary culture, the conversation explored the ways ancient stories remain alive through literature, archaeology, cinema, and the landscapes in which they first took shape.
The evening then continued around a Trojan-inspired table, conceived as more than a dinner. Mythology, food, objects, and storytelling came together to create a contemporary interpretation of the cultural memory of Troy.
For the occasion, Mythaland and Arzu Ensari presented their Troy collection for the first time, shaping the visual language and atmosphere of the table. Alpaslan Baloğlu created a menu inspired by Troy and guided guests through the ingredients, flavors, and stories behind the dishes throughout the evening. The final taste came from Gemedere Peynirleri and Bülent Özgören, with Briseis cheese leaving one last trace of the geography of Troy on the table.
At the center of it all was Rüstem Aslan, whose conversation carried the evening from archaeological memory to Homer’s stories and their afterlives in the present.
The gathering felt closely aligned with the wider spirit of the 10th Çanakkale Biennial. Troy was not approached as a distant historical subject, but as a living cultural landscape capable of moving between archaeology, literature, contemporary art, food, and conversation.
For one evening at İda Blue, those different threads met at the same table — and became part of the same story.
A Short Note Before You Visit
The 10th Çanakkale Biennial runs from October 10 to November 20, 2026. With exhibitions and events spread across 15 venues, it is worth checking the Biennial’s official channels for current schedules, venue information, and event updates before setting out.
