TCF has created and is maintaining the only online databank on living Turkish artists and artisans. TCF Who’s Who in Turkish Culture and Art serves as a gateway to the world for Turkish artists in the form of an online databank that currently includes over 3,700 listings.
In 2006, the Turkish Cultural Foundation identified shadow puppet theater - Karagöz - as one the vanishing Turkish traditional art forms, and undertook the staging and filming of 20 traditional Karagöz plays. The project culminated in the release of Turkish Shadow Puppet Theater: Karagöz, a 5-DVD Collection in 2007 that preserves this traditional Turkish art form for generations to come.
In addition to creating the only multi-lingual portal on Turkish music, the TCF Turkish Music Portal, TCF grants underwrote the first online Turkish Music Dictionary and the publication of the first Turkish Folk Music Dictionary in collaboration with Dr. Melih Duygulu, a leading Turkish ethnomusicologist.
The TCF Image Archive of Turkish Art is a digitalized slide repository of over 12,000 images of art, created by TCF from the professional image collection of Prof. Dr. Nurhan Atasoy, Art Historian and TCF Senior Scholar in Residence (2006-2013).
TCF funded a master study on the influences and impressions of Ottoman material culture on Europe undertaken by Prof. Dr. Nurhan Atasoy. The culmination of the six-year research project in 14 countries was the publication of Impressions of Ottoman Culture in Europe: 1453-1699 by Nurhan Atasoy and her co-author Lale Uluç.
TCF sponsored the creation of an inventory on all Iron Age Settlements in Turkey by the Archaeological Settlements in Turkey Project (Türkiye Arkeolojik Yerleşimleri - TAY Projesi).
The project resulted in a comprehensive databank of 2362 Iron Age settlements in Turkey, published in print and online.
TCF provided a major grant to the Cultural Awareness Foundation (Kültür Bilincini Geliştirme Vakfı), a Turkish non-governmental organization, that resulted in the creation of the Anatolian Seljuk Monuments Inventory, an online databank. The project created an inventory of the nearly 1000 monuments dating back to the Seljuk Empire (1040-1157) in Anatolia.
TCF has also supported the Çatalhöyük excavation with multi-year grants that helped build a shelter to protect the excavated areas, established display panels and signage for visitors and provided funding to train conservation students and members of the local community. Çatalhöyük is now listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites List.
TCF provided major funding to the Global Heritage Fund (GHF) to support the restoration project of the Namık Kemal House in Kars and its usage as a cultural center.
A TCF grant restored and preserved 118 antique carpets at the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum in İstanbul.
Since its founding, TCF has focused on educating the world about Turkish culture through its websites. These free online educational sources have grown into the most visited portals on Turkish culture and have been visited by nearly 25 million people from all across the globe.
