Refusing to Be Forgotten in the Middle of Nowhere

I am the child of immigrants.

So for me, "a place" has never been just a point on a map.

Some places exist in your life not because you have lived there, but because they have been told to you. They live in a word used at home, in a dish that appears on the table, in the way an older relative's voice changes, in an old photograph, sometimes in the story of a house you have never even seen.

You may never have lived in that place.

And yet somehow, it keeps living inside you.

Perhaps that is why the story of the Baksı Museum stayed with me from the very beginning.

Because Baksı does not simply tell me about a museum.

It tells me how a place remembers itself.

Where is Baksı?

The museum stands about 45 kilometers outside the city of Bayburt, on a hill overlooking the Çoruh Valley, in a village now called Bayraktar, formerly known as Baksı.

Seen from Istanbul, Ankara, or Izmir, it is far from what we usually think of as a cultural center.

Even getting there is part of the experience. The drive takes roughly two and a half hours from Erzurum Airport and around three and a half hours from Trabzon Airport.

This is not a museum you happen to pass and decide to visit.

You have to decide to go there.

And that is the first paradox:

Instead of bringing art to where the people are, Baksı asks people to leave the center and come to the art.

At the beginning of the story is Hüsamettin Koçan

Prof. Dr. Hüsamettin Koçan is an artist and academic born in Bayburt.

The idea for Baksı began as his personal dream in 2000. The Baksı Culture and Arts Foundation was established in 2005, and the museum's main building opened in 2010. According to the museum's own account, the building was completed without direct financial support from the state, with the help of artists and volunteers.

But what Koçan set out to do was larger than:

"I want to build a beautiful museum in my hometown."

When he looked back at the place where he grew up, he saw that migration was taking away more than people.

Craftspeople were leaving.

Weaving was declining.

Pottery was disappearing.

Stoneworkers and carpenters were moving elsewhere.

And perhaps most importantly, the chain through which knowledge passed from one generation to the next was breaking.

That is exactly where Baksı enters the story.

Most museums follow a familiar sequence:

A cultural legacy exists → objects are collected → a museum is built to preserve them.

Baksı almost reverses that sequence:

A culture is disappearing → a museum is built → the fading culture of production is brought back into motion.

That, to me, is what makes Baksı so unusual.

It does not want to be only a museum that preserves.

It also wants to be a museum that produces.

Two worlds under one roof

At Baksı, contemporary art and traditional Anatolian production meet in the same place.

On one side: painting, sculpture, video, and installation.

On the other: ehram textiles, folk paintings, embroidery, stone prints, pottery, and ceramics.

Normally, these worlds are institutionally separated.

An ethnography museum is one thing.

A contemporary art museum is another.

Baksı chooses not to place a wall between them. It brings them into contact.

The fact that its opening exhibition in 2010 was titled "Tradition and Art" is hardly accidental.

The underlying idea is powerful:

Tradition is not something that has to be left in the past. It can remain a living source that enters into a new relationship with the present.

And Baksı's ambition does not end with art.

It has workshops, a library, guest accommodations, artist programs, and local production projects.

The participation of local women is also an important part of this structure. Traditional techniques meet contemporary production; knowledge is not simply protected, it begins to circulate again.

So what Baksı is really saying is not:

"Let us preserve local culture behind glass."

It is closer to:

"Let local knowledge become production again."

There is a serious difference between the two.

Why did Europe take notice?

One of the developments that brought Baksı international visibility was its selection for the 2014 Council of Europe Museum Prize.

But the most interesting thing is not the prize itself.

It is why Baksı was recognized.

The Council of Europe highlighted its effort to reduce the distance between center and periphery, to help local people remain economically and culturally rooted in their own geography, and to sustain cultural memory by revitalizing traditional forms of production.

In other words, what drew attention was not merely good architecture, a strong collection, or successful exhibitions.

What was being recognized was the idea of the museum and the kind of relationship it had chosen to build.

Baksı is not an art institution that could exist independently of its surroundings.

It gains meaning together with the memory, production, and people of that geography.

Even the name carries a story

The village now called Bayraktar was once called Baksı.

The museum brought the old name back into view.

According to the museum's own account, "Baksı" means "shaman" in Kyrgyz Turkish. Its associations with healing, helping, and protecting also resonate with the role the museum has taken on.

Think about that for a moment.

The village's name changed.

The old name faded into history.

Then a museum was built there, and the name that had almost disappeared began to be spoken again.

That alone is a small act of local memory.

Hüsamettin Koçan brought the academic and artistic experience he had accumulated in Istanbul back to Bayburt, but he did not try to build a small copy of Istanbul there.

Instead of imposing the center on the local, he tried to bring the local and the contemporary into contact.

And perhaps this is where what I said at the beginning—being the child of immigrants—returns with a different meaning.

The feeling in Zakkum's Anason, of friends slowly "disappearing from the table," feels familiar to me for that reason.

Because when people migrate, they are not the only things that leave.

A craftsman leaves and takes what he knows with him.
A woman leaves and carries the pattern she learned from her mother.
A family leaves and takes the sound of the house, the habits of the table, the words they used.

And with time, those who remain sometimes realize not only whom they have lost, but what they have lost with them.

That is part of what Baksı makes me think about.

We may not be able to bring back those who have gone.

But perhaps we can keep them—and what they carried with them—from being forgotten.

Maybe that is exactly what Baksı is doing:

Not calling the departed back, but refusing to let the memory they left behind disappear.

Editorial Note & Rights Notice

This essay is an original AGORA piece based on personal perspective, research, observation, and cultural reflection.

Baksı Museum, Hüsamettin Koçan, Zakkum, Anason, and the other people, institutions, works, and cultural references mentioned in this essay are included for purposes of commentary, cultural analysis, and factual context. Their inclusion does not imply sponsorship, endorsement, representation, or any official affiliation.

The narrative structure, personal context, selection and sequencing of subjects, connections between sections, commentary, original language, title, and presentation are the work of Orkun Akçasarı.

My special thanks to Sena Aykut, who suggested the idea for this week's essay and introduced me to the story of Baksı.

Unauthorized reproduction, republication, adaptation, translation, narration, attribution to another publication, or commercial use is prohibited. Where brief quotation is permitted by law, the author's name, the full title of the essay, and a link to the original publication should be provided.

Sources were checked against information available as of the publication date. Material factual errors supported by reliable evidence will be corrected transparently.

© 2026 Orkun Akçasarı. All rights reserved.

Sources

Baksı Museum. "About Us."
Background on the museum's founding, Bayraktar village, migration, traditional production, the meaning of the name "Baksı," and the museum's broader mission. Accessed August 23, 2026.
URL: https://baksi.org/hakkimizda

Baksı Museum. "Tradition and Art."
The museum's 2010 opening exhibition and its approach to bringing contemporary art into dialogue with traditional production. Accessed August 23, 2026.
URL: https://baksi.org/sergiler/gelenek-ve-sanat

Baksı Culture and Arts Foundation. "Hüsame Köklü Women's Education Center."
Background on women's participation in traditional crafts, contemporary design, production, and economic life. Accessed August 23, 2026.
URL: https://baksi.org/kadin-egitim-merkezi

Baksı Museum. "Utopia Workshops."
Information on the museum's workshops, collaborative production, education, and artist-participant programs. Accessed August 23, 2026.
URL: https://baksi.org/utopya-atolyeleri

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). "The Baksi Museum (Turkey) wins 2014 Museum Prize." December 3, 2013.
Official announcement and rationale for Baksı Museum's selection for the 2014 Council of Europe Museum Prize.
URL: https://pace.coe.int/en/news/4789/the-baksi-museum-turkey-wins-2014-museum-prize

Zakkum. "Anason." 13, 2011. Lyrics by Cem Senyücel; music by Yusuf Demirkol. Zakkum Official Artist Channel.
Reference source for the brief lyrical allusion used in the essay.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfr_MaidZFo