Prof Derviş Zaim Opens ARUCAD New Academic Year

Associate Professor Derviş Zaim gave the opening lecture for the ARUCAD 2023-2024 Academic Year

Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD) began the 2023-2024 Academic Year with a keynote lecture titled “The Power of Discovering Stories” by the renowned director Assoc. Prof. Derviş Zaim.   The opening lecture for the 2023-2024 Academic Year was presented on Wednesday, November 1st, in the University’s Conference Hall, with the presence of the Board of Trustees Chairman Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sinan Arkın, Rector Prof. Dr. Asım Vehbi, Vice-Rectors, faculty members, and students.  Following the opening speech by ARUCAD’s Rector, Prof. Dr. Asım Vehbi, Derviş Zaim, who is one of the prominent artists nurtured by Cyprus, gave the inaugural lecture to guide students in discovering the power of stories.

In his opening speech, ARUCAD Rector Prof. Dr. Asım Vehbi began by saying, “First and foremost, I wish us all a successful and healthy academic year. Welcoming Assoc. Prof. Derviş Zaim, a valuable artist from these lands, to ARUCAD is a great privilege and source of happiness for all of us.” Vehbi provided some information about the growing and evolving university, stating, “ARUCAD was established in 2017 as the only university in the region focused on art, design, and communication. While aiming to be the place where our students can realize their dreams, we also had the responsibility to preserve our country’s nature, history, and culture, and to bring together the global and the local. As we enter our sixth year with 1,100 students and collaboration with students and academics from 55 countries, we have strived to balance education quality with technical and practical courses. We have introduced our galleries, Lifelong Learning Center, exhibitions, and events, connecting local artists with our students and the public, and we continue to do so. We started our journey in 2017 with 3 Faculties and 5 Departments, and in the 2023-2024 Academic Year, we continued with 4 Faculties, 16 Undergraduate, 1 Associate, 3 Postgraduate, and 3 Doctorate programs, totaling 23 departments. While we had 33 faculty members in 2017, this year, we have 86 faculty members from 53 different countries. We started our educational journey with 35 students and now continue with 1,100 students. With our capacity of 1 faculty member for every 12 students, we are progressing with the goal of becoming a globally recognized university. As we work to further improve our university, our wish is to have a healthy and successful year and to work even harder to move forward together.”

Derviş Zaim gained recognition for his first feature film “The Coup” in 1996, which won numerous awards both domestically and internationally. He went on to make several more films, including “Elephants and Grass” (2000), “Waiting for Heaven” (2006), “Dot” (2008), and “Shadows and Faces” (2011), which were shown in and received awards at various film festivals.

“To BUILD OUR FUTURE AND REPRESENT OUR PAST, WE FIRST NEED TO TELL OUR STORIES”

Professor Zaim began his opening lecture by wishing all ARUCAD students and faculty a healthy academic year and continued as follows: “I would like to start our lecture on the Power of Stories by first quoting a short excerpt from the animated film Winnie the Pooh. In a scene I watched, it said, ‘We didn’t realize we were making memories; we were just having fun.’ This short sentence had a significant impact on me because it completely conveyed the power and feeling of creating a story and being within a story. You need to be able to tell the story of what you do, whether it’s making an airplane or going into space; if you can’t turn what you experience into a story, it can’t become a part of you and isn’t truly yours. To build our future and represent our past, we first need to tell our stories. For instance, to narrate the discovery of America in the 19th century, you need a story like Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick.’ Humanity has been telling stories for 5000 years. In the story you tell, you need to deal with crises and work on them. In the first act, order is disrupted, the golden age is destroyed; in the second act, the struggle begins, and in the third act, the golden age is re-established.”

Zaim added, “Creating a good story requires simplicity, a humane approach, and dedication, and the most important source of this is the character. For example, in my film ‘The Coup,’ I wanted to tell the story of a thief I knew. This thief stole cars at night and returned them during the day, which I found very interesting, and I wanted to follow the story. Additionally, the film ‘Elephants and Grass’ emerged from a single image I saw during the Susurluk events, and as you know, ‘Shadows and Faces’ was based on the thoughts provoked by an incident that occurred in a village in Cyprus in 1963. Another significant aspect of stories is that they avoid giving information. The desire to provide information makes you rhetorical and turns it into a slogan, which is a very dangerous area. However, telling a story is similar to building a house; you have to construct it. In the first act, you describe the house, in the second act, you put fire in the fireplace, and in the third act, you restore balance. In these three acts, people expect everything to be resolved, to reach fulfillment in the next part, and for the missing piece to be completed.”

Zaim concluded by saying, “In fact, stories tell us things we don’t know that we don’t know and make us aware. Through virtue and morality, they lead us to think about them. If there is to be communication between societies, the way is to tell and understand each other by explaining what we don’t know and what we know.”

The opening lecture continued with a question-and-answer session with the renowned director Derviş Zaim. Following the Q&A session, ARUCAD Board of Trustees Chairman Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sinan Arkın and Rector Prof. Dr. Asım Vehbi presented Professor Zaim with a handcrafted artwork produced in the University’s glass studio and a certificate of appreciation as a memento of the day.

Source (Turkish): Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD)