ECOSYSTEM
After eight years of hemp research across industries, we’re proving this ancient plant belongs back in art. Hemp materials last 500+ years versus conventional alternatives, while the plant itself heals soil and sequesters carbon. Our annual traveling exhibition across Turkey starts with artists in our communities creating with hemp canvas, paper, fiber, and oils we produced ourselves – from heirloom seeds to finished artworks. It’s a cultural renaissance showing communities how hemp can transform agriculture, creativity, and local economies. We’re planting seeds of change that will grow into a hemp movement across communities and beyond.
Collaborative Innovation: One Vision
Art on Hemp emerges from an extraordinary collaboration between three organizations that found each other through a shared belief: hemp’s return to human civilization requires the marriage of ancient wisdom, cutting-edge science, and democratic community power.
Hasat Kooperatifi
Where Democracy Meets the Soil
In 2024, something remarkable happened in Turkey’s rural communities. Fifty farmers, many of them descendants of families who had grown hemp generations ago, came together to form Hasat Kooperatifi. They weren’t just creating another agricultural business—they were reclaiming their heritage and their economic sovereignty.
These farmers remembered stories from their grandparents about the golden days when Turkish hemp was prized across Europe. But they also understood that simply returning to old methods wouldn’t be enough. They needed to combine traditional wisdom with regenerative practices that could heal the land while creating prosperity for their communities.
Hasat Kooperatifi operates on a simple but revolutionary principle: every farmer is an owner, every decision is democratic, and every harvest benefits the whole community. When hemp prices are determined, farmers vote. When new cultivation techniques are adopted, farmers decide together. When profits are shared, everyone receives their fair portion based on both their contribution and their need.
The cooperative’s approach to hemp cultivation goes far beyond organic farming. These farmers practice regenerative agriculture that actually improves the land with each growing season. Their hemp plants sequester carbon, restore soil health, and create habitat for beneficial insects. Each field becomes a small ecosystem that supports not just hemp growth, but the entire web of life that makes agriculture sustainable.
For Art on Hemp, Hasat Kooperatifi provides more than just raw materials. These farmers bring the living story of hemp’s relationship with the land. When artists work with hemp canvas, they’re touching fibers that grew in soil restored through democratic cooperation and ecological wisdom.
Kendir Agricultural Research Company
Where Science Meets Possibility
The transformation of hemp from plant to artistic material requires precision, innovation, and deep technical knowledge. That’s where Kendir Agricultural Research Company enters the story. Founded in 2022, this research facility in Mecitözü, Çorum, represents Turkey’s most advanced hemp processing operation.
But Kendir isn’t just about machinery and efficiency. The company emerged from years of patient research, beginning with fundamental questions: How can we process hemp to achieve the highest possible quality? How can we prove scientifically what artists have known intuitively—that hemp materials are superior? How can we scale production without losing the artisanal quality that makes each hemp canvas special?
The answers came through relentless experimentation and collaboration with universities across Turkey. Kendir’s laboratory doesn’t just test hemp fiber quality—it documents every aspect of hemp’s environmental impact. Their research proves that every kilogram of hemp fiber sequesters 9.5 tons of CO₂, requires 85% less water than cotton, and improves soil health rather than depleting it.
The company’s state-of-the-art decortication facility represents the culmination of traditional hemp processing knowledge enhanced by modern technology. Their machines achieve 95% efficiency in separating bast fiber from hurd, but more importantly, they do so while maintaining the integrity and strength that makes hemp canvas last for centuries.
For Art on Hemp, Kendir provides the bridge between agricultural production and artistic application. Their hemp canvases aren’t just sustainable alternatives—they’re superior materials that allow artists to create works that will outlast anything painted on conventional canvas. When an artist prepares a hemp canvas with hemp oil, they’re working with materials that represent the cutting edge of sustainable manufacturing.
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EarthistDAO
Where Community Meets the Future
In 2023, a group of visionaries asked a radical question: What if communities could govern themselves democratically using blockchain technology? What if the hemp renaissance could be guided not by corporations or governments, but by the people who would be most affected by its success or failure?
EarthistDAO was born from this question. As Turkey’s first decentralized autonomous organization focused on regenerative agriculture, EarthistDAO operates on principles that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. Two hundred members from across Turkey and around the world participate in democratic decision-making through blockchain-based voting. Every major decision about Art on Hemp—from artist selection to venue choice to budget allocation—is made collectively by people who believe in hemp’s transformative potential.
But EarthistDAO is more than a governance experiment. It’s a living demonstration of how communities can take control of their own cultural and economic development. When traditional funding sources weren’t available for the hemp renaissance, DAO members contributed their own resources. When expertise was needed, members shared their knowledge freely. When connections were required, the network provided them organically.
The DAO’s approach to Art on Hemp reflects this community-centered philosophy. Rather than imposing a vision from above, EarthistDAO creates platforms where local communities can express their own relationship with hemp. The three-city exhibition series isn’t just about displaying art—it’s about empowering communities to become centers of hemp renaissance.
EarthistDAO members understand that Art on Hemp is just the beginning. Their vision extends to a future where every community has access to hemp-based sustainable materials, where democratic governance guides technological development, and where ancient plant wisdom informs modern innovation. The blockchain tools they’ve developed for coordinating Art on Hemp will be available to any community ready to launch their own hemp renaissance.
The Magic of Collaboration
The real power of Art on Hemp comes from how these three organizations complement and strengthen each other. Hasat Kooperatifi brings the deep wisdom of farmers who understand hemp as a living system. Kendir Agricultural Research provides the scientific rigor and technical innovation needed to prove hemp’s superiority. EarthistDAO offers the governance model and community engagement that ensures the hemp renaissance serves people rather than profit.
When an artist receives hemp materials for Art on Hemp, they’re holding the result of this collaboration. The canvas was grown by democratic farmers using regenerative practices, processed by scientists committed to technical excellence, and coordinated by communities governing themselves through blockchain democracy. Every brushstroke connects the artist to this network of relationships that spans rural farms, research laboratories, and global communities united by a shared vision.
This collaborative model proves that the future doesn’t have to be built by large corporations or government programs. Communities working together with appropriate technology, scientific knowledge, and democratic values can create transformative change. Art on Hemp isn’t just about sustainable art materials—it’s a demonstration of how hemp can catalyze new forms of economic, social, and cultural organization.
As the exhibition travels from Istanbul to İzmir to Balıkesir, it carries the story of these three organizations and their collaborative vision. Visitors don’t just see hemp artworks—they encounter a living example of how communities can take control of their own renaissance, using the oldest tools of human civilization (hemp plants and democratic cooperation) enhanced by the newest technologies (blockchain governance and precision agriculture) to create possibilities that seemed impossible just a few years ago.