Platform 0090 and Istanbul Theatre Festival have been cooperating for a number of years. In 2004, 0090 started a festival with Turkish visual artists and performers and with artists working at the intersection of these two fields. In the meantime, 0090 has evolved to become a platform supporting about 20 international artists in these domains. Istanbul Theatre Festival is one of its longstanding partners in the exchange between Belgium and Turkey. In both directions, artists get to know each other and to experience a diverse reality.

This cooperation has now been extended by Sven Gatz, Flemish Minister for Culture, Media, Youth and Brussels, who is providing extra financial support. In this way Mr Gatz aims at fostering art criticism, which is struggling to survive in this precarious climate.
While Istanbul Theatre Festival used to focus on well-established names, it is now also inviting younger artists. It embraces creative minds who set out to abandon the current theatrical tradition in Turkey in order to experiment with different aspects of the creative process, from light to scenography.