This extraordinary museum rising in Bayraktar village formerly known as Baksi, includes contemporary art and traditional handcrafts side-by-side under the same roof. Exhibition halls, Warehouse Museum, workshops, conference hall, library and guest house, Baksı Museum is spreading in a land of 40 acres, and it sprouted as a dream of Bayburt-born artist and academy Professor. Dr. Hüsamettin Koçan in 2000. This project is the result of an effort to carry life to Husamettin Koçan's lands. Baksı Culture and Art Foundation was founded in 2005 in order to make this idea come to life. The museum has turned into a true social project over the years with the contribution of many volunteers, especially artists.
The main building of the museum was completed in 2010 after a tough adventure without any financial assistance from the state. The presentation of the Baksı Museum was held in Istanbul Modern in June 2010 and the opening was in July. In 2012, the Warehouse Museum, the new exhibition hall of the museum, met with art lovers.
There are 480 people living in 80 houses in Bayraktar Village today. The decisive element of the last 20 years is immigration ... Handicrafts such as pottery, weaving, etc. were at the rates of providing for the whole village once but they are almost absent today. The architectural tradition has completely disappeared, the carpenters and the stone masters have gone abroad. The traditional architecture of the village turned into slums. Young people are dealing with limited amount of soil in the summer, but there is not enough production in winters. Baksı is the former name of Bayraktar Village. In Kyrgyz Turkish it means shaman. Some of the habits of the people that have been sustained until recently suggest that the village has been under the influence of shaman tradition in the distant past. The reason of selecting the name Baksı for the museum, arised from the fact that the meaning of the shamanic word 'healer, helper, protector' overlaps with the museum's missions.
The Baksı Museum is located in the Bayraktar village of Bayburt, is a search for a solution to the problems and consequences of the lost traditions, the forgotten values. It has an understanding that establishes the links of future and continuity and strengthens these ties with employment-expectation and moral elements. It is a museum that carries out researches to transfer traditional culture to future generations and puts women's employment projects into practice in particular. They identify projects with special talented children in their area and contribute to their education through scholarships, especially in the fields of design, arts and culture. The Baksı Museum, which provides employment to the region through cultural tourism, plans to redesign the Baksı village as a model village preserving its traditional structure in line with the recommendations of experts.
Baksı Museum is a museum that does not limit itself to stay only as a museum, it provides education for people living in that region, it is a museum that wants to make living in those lands a joy.
Baksı Museum has a special identity, unlike others, that combines traditional and modern at the same footing, without any direction or turnover, and creates economic targets with the production units it builds in itself.
There are mainly art publications and folklore publications in the library department. There are about 10 thousand publications specifically aimed at encouraging the use of children. Baksı Library aims to gain power by enriching art lovers with books, magazines and donations of audiovisual materials.
Educational programs are organized in the hall with 150 seats capacity, like seminars, conferences, panels, symposiums and shows. At the same time, this hall is on its way to become a common social meeting place where the surrounding villagers come together for important days and celebrations.
Would you like to donate to the Baksi Museum's library in the context of art history, theoretical publications on art, museology, folklore and children's books? You can contact baksi@baksi.org for your donations.
Main Exhibition Hall
The main exhibition hall of 1500 m2 consists of two parts, in which contemporary art and designs are exhibited. The main exhibition hall includes exhibitions on contemporary art and designs. The exhibit concept in this section, where periodic exhibitions can be followed, has an interdisciplinary approach.
Warehouse Museum
The museum planned as a section where collections were preserved and shared with the audience. The Depo-Museum, which has a closed area of approximately 1,000 m2, was added to the museum complex in 2012. In this scene there are examples of contemporary art together with a collection of public painting, glass and processing collections, writing pictures, healing stones, realms, stone prints, pottery and ceramics, ehrams.