A painting that ended up carrying marks from diplomats, officials and guests from more than 60 countries has just won its Turkish creator a top honour. Serra Erdoğan received the 2026 Honorary Award for Futurism in Art at the Global Tourism Forum's annual meeting in Brussels, held on 9-10 November at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
The work, titled "The Colors War Could Not Steal," is dedicated to women and children whose lives have been upended by conflict. Erdoğan's approach is deliberately bright: instead of leaning on dark, harrowing imagery, she uses vivid colour and geometric forms to talk about survival, solidarity and the possibility of starting again.
What made the piece stand out was how it was finished. During a collaborative performance at the forum, international guests — including senior officials and diplomatic representatives — added their own lines, figures and marks to the canvas. The result is less a single artist's statement than a shared appeal, assembled by people from very different national and cultural backgrounds.
The symbolism runs deliberately deep. A circular structure at the centre stands for the maternal womb, the cycle of life and the instinct to protect. Geometric patterns around it suggest fragmented lives trying to stay connected; tear-shaped forms acknowledge grief and loss. The colours ringing these elements represent resilience and children's dreams. As Erdoğan put it, war can shatter lives but never steal the colours of hope.
The award ceremony sat inside a bigger event. The two-day Global Tourism Forum drew government representatives, EU officials and industry leaders from over 60 countries, with more than 70 speakers covering tourism investment, artificial intelligence, transport infrastructure, border security and freedom of travel. Names on the programme included MEP Daniel Attard, former Portuguese secretary of state Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar, Azerbaijan's ex-culture and tourism minister Abulfas Garayev, and ambassadors from Zambia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, plus delegates from Mozambique, South Africa, Ecuador and Myanmar.
For travellers, the story doubles as a nudge toward one of Brussels' most underrated cultural stops. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium — where the forum took place — house one of Europe's great collections, from Bruegel and Rubens to Magritte, and sit right in the city's compact museum quarter. And if Erdoğan's work is anything to go by, contemporary art with a humanitarian edge is finding a home in Brussels' international event calendar, which is worth watching if you're passing through.
Who cares about this? Travellers who plan city breaks around galleries and exhibitions, anyone interested in how art and diplomacy intersect, and visitors to Brussels who want to look beyond the Grand Place and the EU quarter. It's a reminder that some of the most interesting things happening in a capital city are attached to conferences you'd never think to check.
Story first reported by Daily Sabah Travel.
