Free Saturday Workshops & Collective Learning
Since the opening of our Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly has become a vibrant place for workshops, lectures, and collective learning experiences. Every Saturday, we organize free workshops open to everyone, where creativity, connection, and personal expression are at the heart of the experience.
Our Saturday workshops provide a space for experimentation and connection. Participants explore storytelling, visual arts, color, drawing, writing, and movement, creating contributions to a collective story archive, a living artwork that preserves each person’s presence and voice. Each session is also an opportunity to make a small personal keepsake, a symbolic “key” reflecting your contribution and inviting reflection on your own experiences.
The space itself acts as a hub for learning, encounter, and collective imagination, where participants meet, share ideas, and experiment together. Whether through individual or collaborative practice, the workshops make the city’s unseen stories visible and memorable.
Alongside the Saturday workshops, the Education & Participation Space hosts CLiP Open sessions, community-led projects, and other creative learning opportunities. It functions as a hub for encounter, exchange, and collective imagination, where participants explore, share, and connect through creativity.
Free Workshops with Nurdan Ariöz - Januari 2026
Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Location: Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly
In January, join a special Saturday series with Nurdan Ariöz, exploring the unseen stories of the city. Through collage, drawing, color, writing, and intuitive movement, personal memories and fleeting moments are transformed into a collective story archive: a living artwork preserving every contribution. Participants also create small keepsakes to take home as reflections on their own experience and the shared creative process.
The workshops are accessible to all ages and participants with limited language skills.
Workshop Schedule
Workshop #1 – Personal Story Archive
Date: Saturday 3 January 2026 | Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Begin your journey by collecting memories, thoughts, and moments that have stayed with you. Using drawing, writing, and collage, create your own story archive, the foundation of a collective archive that grows throughout the series. Take home a small card with a key symbol as a keepsake.
Workshop #2 – Key to a Memory
Date: Saturday 10 January 2026 | Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Choose a meaningful moment, a sound, scent, or conversation and distill it into one key sentence. Turn it into a collage or mini artwork, and take home a personal version of your story. Reflect on your emotions, senses, and the significance of the moment.
Workshop #3 – The Colors of Silence
Date: Saturday 17 January 2026 | Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Express a feeling without words using color and movement, guided by music. Write one sentence: “This is what I could not say.” Add your work to the archive and take home a fragment of your creation as a symbol of your expression.
Workshop #4 – A New Key Story
Date: Saturday 24 January 2026 | Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Explore the archive and select contributions from others. Combine two stories to create a new short key story, which becomes part of the collective archive. Take home a small paper key with a sentence from your story.
Workshop #5 – Letter to Yourself
Date: Saturday 31 January 2026 | Time: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Conclude the series with tea, treats, and reflection. Write a card to yourself looking back on the past weeks and forward to what comes next. Cards may be added to the archive or kept as a personal memento.
Meet the Artist & Educator
Nurdan Ariöz is a multidisciplinary maker working across photography, text, ceramics, textiles, and screen printing. Her practice explores “in-between spaces”: places where courage arises, silence whispers stories, and unseen talent shines. She works in museums, classrooms, and public spaces, seeking moments where young people can find their voice. Nurdan’s work invites participants to look more attentively, move freely, and honor their own journeys.