Speakers: Özgür Özakın, Öykü Canlı (poşe), Elif Bursalı & Zeynep Okyay (PASAJ)
Moderator: Saliha Yavuz
In the second of the talk series moderated by Saliha Yavuz, speakers met on a common ground where they discussed the relationships of place/public space requirements/necessities in creative and independent formations; advantages and disadvantages of the use of the street as a test area; ways to develop strategies and models for production and exhibition as well as dialogues emerging from interwoven subjects and relationships such as neighborhood, artist, industry, art production.
Özgür Özakın graduated from METU Department of Architecture in 1993. He completed his master’s degree in the same department in 1997 and his doctorate in 2011 from Bilkent Interior Architecture and Environmental Design. She is a part-time lecturer at Yaşar University, Department of Interior Architecture. Philosophy and architecture, spatial theory and sustainable architecture are the focus of her works.
poşe is an independent and non-profit organization established in spring 2018 by artists Öykü Canlı and Larissa Araz at their own venues in Istanbul, Moda. The emergence lies in the desire to act and to come together. It is a physical and intellectual place where different forms of experience, discipline, production and thinking speak to each other. It does not hesitate to try and be wrong, believes in the power of the transfer of experience and argues that the production processes are as important as the works.
After graduating from Marmara University, Department of Economics, Elif Bursalı graduated from Bilgi University Cultural Management MA program. She wrote her dissertation on ‘’The Role of Artist Initiatives and Venues Conducted by Artists in the Contemporary Art of Istanbul (Sanatçı İnisiyatifleri ve Sanatçılar Tarafından Yürütülen Mekânların İstanbul Güncel Sanat Alanındaki Rolü)’’ in comparison with Berlin, revealing the differences in the conditions and sustainability of such spaces in the two cities. Since 2010, Bursalı has been one of the co-founders of PASAJ’s independent art field and is the field manager of PASAJ’s Air Bayrampaşa residence program.
Zeynep Okyay who is one of the co-founders of the PASAJ independent art field, hosting participatory and social-oriented projects, completed her project in the Cultural Management master program at Bilgi University with a participatory demo dictionary, Independent Art Areas dictionary. Throughout the year, she worked on rewriting the terminology of the field and developing new forms of expression. From 2016 to 2017, she attended the I-team Cultural Creativity program organized by Relais Culture Europe, the French office of Creative Europe. She took part in Erasmus + projects with PASAJ aiming to empower young people with art practices. She continues her artistic and cultural works under the roof of PASAJ and amberPlatform.
