Heidi Trautmann – New Book launch
and exhibition at Milli Arşiv
By Margaret Sheard….
Heidi finally finished her book “Art and Creativity in North Cyprus – Volume II” and the launch was held at 
the National Archive and Research Centre (Milli Arşiv) in Girne on Tuesday 29th September, together with an exhibition of art, culture and theatre which are all part of the content of the book.
We arrived early and had a chance to look at the exhibition and to speak with Heidi and Gökhan Şengör the Director of Milli Arşiv, who was very pleased to make available 
the wonderful new building for this event, as well as other interesting people who had also arrived early.
While waiting for the opening ceremony to start I sat with some other people and a lady tried to have a conversation with me, unfortunately she had no English and I have only a very limited knowledge of Turkish, but we managed to communicate and establish that she had 4 children, two girls and two boys. This was Vedia Alkaş who is now 81 years old and was there with one of her daughters, we later met her son Osman who is a well-known theatre and film actor. We later discovered that Heidi has a very close friendship with Vedia and will be writing more about her life in the future.
Soon there was a very large gathering of people who had come along for the launch and to hear the opening speeches by Gökhan Şengör, Heidi Trautmann and Yaşar Ersoy, the former director of the Nicosia Municipality Theatre (LBT). There were many familiar faces present that evening, including Nidai Güngördü, the Mayor of Girne, and Derman Atik, the Cultural Director, as well as many people from the art and culture world. We were pleased to see Tomrul Tomgűsehan and Hasan Eminağa from Dizay74 Pottery, Stephen Everett from KADS, Morton Coles and his wife Gulseven Atay a well-known local artist and many others.
As well as some lovely paintings from various local artists there was a display of terracotta figures and art lovers will remember the 1st International Akdeniz Terracotta Symposium held in September 2014 which featured many wonderful pieces and the opportunity to see the artists at work producing them.
The exhibition was to continue until the 2nd October and Heidi had arranged to be there every day to promote her book. I obtained a copy of the book whilst I was there and look forward to reading this in the future. As I currently have a backlog of reading matter, this will possibly be a pursuit for the winter months.
We wish Heidi well with her wonderful achievement and the many other interesting events which she attends and writes about on her website www.heiditrautmann.com Where possible we also share Heidi’s articles on our own website which gives a good mix of topics for everyone’s taste and enjoyment.
