Message From The President

The founder of Borusan Holding, the late Asım Kocabıyık, cared deeply about progression, innovation, and entrepreneurship in his work; the values that made Borusan one of the pioneering communities of Turkey for seventy years now were woven into the institution’s culture and philosophy in the early stages of its foundation. For Kocabıyık, education was a prerequisite for keeping up with the times and in his words, “[he] felt the positive results of the republic’s educational reforms all [his] life.” As a natural outcome of the importance he placed in education, he founded the Asım Kocabıyık Foundation for Culture and Education in 1992, institutionalizing his efforts in this realm. The foundation continues its work under the name Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation in the fields of education, music, and visual arts, sustaining the vast legacy of Asım Kocabıyık.

The CEO of Borusan Holding and the founder of Borusan Art, Ahmet Kocabıyık, established Borusan Art in 1997, inspired by Asım Kocabıyık and his passion for music. Later on, he focused his efforts on the visual arts, forming the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection. Fueled by the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, which focuses on media art, Borusan Contemporary became a pioneer in its field in Turkey, converging the concepts of an office and an art center.

For Turkey to move towards better social development, a more civilized life and a contemporaneity with other countries, we believe that art has to be placed alongside education as a priority. The foundations of our activities in arts and culture is for art to have a universal language, transcending time and borders to have a depth and power that can bring people together in the same world. We continue to share the joyful fruits of this vision with art lovers in Istanbul. Our goal is to be able to share it with the world.

In this adventure that we started with the Borusan Istanbul Philarmonic Orchestra, Borusan Contemporary is a relatively young formation. Borusan Contemporary, with the dynamicism of youth, closely follows the contemporary artistic production and approaches to arts management, reaching a most significant group of people who are interested in media art in our country.

Art Centers are one of the most important institutions in creating a new vision through their direct contribution to the development of societies with exhibitions, events, and educational program, bringing together different communities. Borusan Contemporary is founded on the art institution administration models applied today, organizing educational programs targeting children and teenagers who will become the media artist of the future, aligned with the identity of the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection; new works are commissioned regularly; emerging artists and art lovers are guided in their interests through the art center’s programming.

We, at Borusan, learned from our founder and father Asım Kocabıyık that education and art are indispensable aspects of a developed society. We see it as our responsibility to gift a future to our children and our youth in which they can demand their basic rights and freedoms, where they can see the positive outcomes of art that both liberates and brings people together.

Our biggest goal is to expand and to move forward the major local and international success of Borusan Art into a new field with Borusan Contemporary. I full-heartedly believe that our dedicated staff and loyal audience who has supported to us always will help us achieve this goal.

Zeynep Hamedi 
President of the Executive Board
Borusan Kocabıyık Foundation

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