How Paribu Art meets the city

In April, children in Istanbul's Kadıköy district coloured cat characters on tablets and watched them appear, seconds later, across the exterior of Paribu Art. Made for National Sovereignty and Children's Day, the project gave its young participants a hand in what the neighbourhood could see, with a drawing on a small screen becoming an image at the scale of a building.

That change of scale runs through Paribu Art's programme. Opened in late 2025 by the fintech company Paribu, the venue brings live performance into contact with a 1,250-square-metre LED façade, while Paribu Studio develops the visual work across its surfaces. Its audience extends into the surrounding streets, where people can encounter a work as they pass.

Ahead of SILK's gathering with Paribu Art and Paribu Studio during Contemporary Istanbul, our editor Nina Knaack asked the team about the space's beginnings and the collaborations taking shape around it.

NK: "How did Paribu Art begin, and what prompted its creation?"

Paribu Art: "Since 2020, Paribu has supported more than 30 cultural institutions in Türkiye. Paribu Art is where that support took a physical form of its own.

"In Kadıköy, a 1,250-square-metre LED surface wraps three sides of the building. Paribu Art opened in late 2025 as a programmable public canvas, with the façade staying synchronised with performances happening inside. On opening night, composer Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol performed with a visual score choreographed across the full exterior, and the whole building carried the performance.

"Behind the surface are two stages and a foyer. The main hall has modular telescopic seating, allowing the same room to hold contemporary theatre one night and an electronic set the next, while a smaller side stage hosts performances and workshops. The foyer has its own projection system, which runs alongside the façade during concerts.

"Kadıköy has always had its artists and its audiences, so the canvas went up in front of a crowd that was already there."

NK: "What is the vision behind Paribu Art today?"

PA: "Paribu Art works towards an art ecosystem where work is produced together and experienced in company. Art and technology are treated as two forces that feed each other, which is how the physical and the digital end up in the same programme. Interdisciplinary production receives direct support, and digital tools inform how work is made, shown and reached.

"The LED canvas is where that vision becomes visible from the street. The façade works as a production and exhibition space in its own right, letting a work address the city directly and reach people who never bought a ticket.

"Artists, creative producers and cultural actors from different disciplines are offered a space open to collaboration. The programming looks for participatory and experiential connections with audiences, drawing on local culture while staying open to global dialogue."

NK: "How has 2026 unfolded for Paribu Art so far?"

PA: "2026 has been a year of testing the building in practice, with dozens of events across concerts, theatre, dance, film screenings, workshops and community gatherings. The canvas has accompanied them, and each strand asks something different of the surface.
"All of the screen work comes out of Paribu Studio, Paribu's multidisciplinary creative production space at the intersection of technology, art and design. The studio combines foundational craft with machine learning, creative coding and real-time technologies, working with an expanding network of artists.

"In March, Ben Caplan's concert became an underwater mapping piece across the façade and foyer, while the visuals for Ko Shin Moon's show drew on Mesopotamian and Assyrian relief carving. In April, SWANS brought Tan Sağtürk Genç Bale Topluluğu onto the stage and set classical ballet against hip hop across the screens. On 23 April, the façade became a colouring book for National Sovereignty and Children's Day: children coloured cat characters on tablets and watched them appear on the building seconds later.

"A surface at this scale needs creative approaches developed for each production. Paribu Studio's creative technologists move between tools depending on what the work asks for, using real-time engines for interactive installations and generative models to produce material that is then composited and graded by hand. The children's cats ran on Unity, while an installation for Paribu's ninth anniversary used person detection to place characters on the canvas as people walked past.

"Artist collaborations put an artist and a creative technologist side by side for a single work. Most recently, that has meant working across six separate surfaces, at a resolution standard video models cannot reach."

NK: "Looking ahead, what is next for Paribu Art?"

PA: "The new season includes The Sisters of Mercy in September and A Teen Odyssey by the Spanish company La Mecànica, a production across four nights that brings the audience's own phones into the story. Mummenschanz arrives at the end of October with 50 Years, while November brings Ghostly Kisses, Jakuzi and Sena Gül.

"Festival programming includes Ad Infinitum's Last Rites through the 30th Istanbul Theatre Festival and Mondo by Susana Pous through the eighth Istanbul Fringe Festival. The first date announced for 2027 is Dylan Moran's Looking For Trouble on 20 March.

"Studio Crush Day also joins the programme as Paribu Studio's own gathering. It is an opportunity for the studio to share the way it works with artists, designers, storytellers and technologists from outside the building, bringing them into the ecosystem around it. The intention is for more of the work on the canvas to start outside the studio."

During Contemporary Istanbul, SILK, Paribu Art and Paribu Studio are hosting a gathering with Fvckrender and other artists.
Click here for event details and registration.