Updates
Our Flying Carpet Festival Founder Among Winner Of Aga Khan Music Award 2025
We are deeply honored to share that our festival and its founder, Sahba Aminikia, have been selected as one of the winners of the 2025 Aga Khan Music Award "for visionary creativity in founding and guiding the Flying Carpet Festival, which draws on the transformative power of art and music to enrich the lives of children in conflict zones" - a recognition that belongs not only to us but to everyone who has walked alongside this journey of sound, hope, and magic, including artists, Sirkhane Social Circus School and our donors and supporters.
Flying Carpet Festival 2026 | Turkish–Syrian Border | August 21–September 1, 2026
🎪 Flying Carpet Festival 2026 📍 Mardin, Türkiye – Turkish–Syrian Border 📅 August 21 – September 1, 2026 🌍 8th Edition https://www.flyingcarpetfestival.com/... 3.5 million refugees. Millions of forgotten children. Every year, 50 artists from 20 countries unite to bring back color, music, stories, circus, dance, laughter, and hope to one of the world’s most fragile borders. Through 75 performances, 600 workshops, and over 40,000 children reached, the Flying Carpet Festival transforms war-torn lands into spaces of joy, resilience, and shared humanity.
Flying Carpet Festival Returns To Mardin And Beyond
The Flying Carpet Festival 2025 is set to return between August 30 - September 9, 2025, once again transforming the landscapes of Southeastern Türkiye into a stage of music, circus, dance, visual arts, and storytelling.
Founded by Iranian-American composer Sahba Aminikia and organized by the Art Anywhere Association (Sirkhane Social Circus School), the festival has become a beacon of joy and resilience for children and families in border communities. Now in its eighth year, Flying Carpet brings together over 50 international and local artists from across four continents to weave a tapestry of beauty, play, and hope in towns and villages along the Turkish-Syrian border.
The Greatest Show On Earth — For Kids Who Need It Most
TED Fellow and composer Sahba Aminikia brings the healing power of dance, storytelling, music and performance to some of the most dangerous places on Earth. By celebrating children and their communities with beauty and joy, he shows how to cultivate hope, connection and love — even in conflict zones. "The ultimate power is in unity," Aminikia says.
Photography project by Her Yerde Sanat and Sirkhane DARKROOM Supported by UNHCR Türkiye
With the support of @unhcrturkiye7575, Sirkhane DARKROOM continue travelling to the most distant places and given the opportunity to children to speak for themselves with Photography accompany with awareness workshops such as child right, gender equality and peer bullying.