Arts & Cultural Management

A two-day children’s festival dedicated to the intersections of arts and ecology in the village of Aktaş Köyü (Xunar) in Rize, Turkey. The festival channels traditional and new forms of human knowledge and artistic expression in relation to local ecology, envisioning how community engagement in sustainability can usher in better models of cultural and ecotourism in the Black Sea and Turkey broadly. This festival, organized by ethnomusicologist Audrey Wozniak in collaboration with Black Sea musician, luthier, and researcher Oktay Üst and artist and art instructor Fırat Bingöl, will include interactive workshops on environmentalism and local agriculture, arts ateliers, and concerts from local musicians. This festival will revitalize the village’s past festival, which ceased to exist due to financial struggles, and is aimed at instilling creativity, empathy, and curiosity in the children of the region and their families. We aspire for Ekozeni Çocuk Festivali to become the inaugural event of Ekozeni Habitat, a broader organization that seeks to present educational opportunities, artistic support and programming, and immersive experiences emphasizing the intertwined relationship between people and the world they inhabit.

I led an ensemble of thirty world musicians from diverse musical backgrounds, from Carnatic singing to Celtic fiddling. In weekly rehearsals, I worked to help the musicians (myself included) find a common musical language to perform works from far-reaching cultures. I organized public concerts and multiple family-oriented community workshops, which entailed managing venue booking and operations, social media, and the ensemble budget.

Watch the fall 2019 concert here. 

I helped to produce an interdisciplinary musical showcase of improvisatory and interactive events at London's Rich Mix as part of the city-wide Open Senses Festival. This involved managing booking forms, tech riders, scheduling, operations, and social media as well as assisting with grant-writing and liasing with the venue staff, artists, and audience.