Şafak Çatalbaş

Şafak Çatalbaş graduated from the Department of Film and Television at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Marmara University in 2003, and subsequently earned a master’s degree (2007) and a PhD (2023) from the Faculty of Art and Design at Yıldız Technical University. In her work, she uses various media such as performance, video, text, and installation, combining performative and introspective processes with a playful approach. Her practice explores the embodiment of liminal spaces associated with borders, doors, and scales. She is interested in infiltrating the language-like structures within social-public spaces in everyday life in order to disrupt and reveal their flows. She approaches new forms of expression and possibilities of collaborative learning enabled by performative research through practices that create conditions where the unexpected can emerge. She has participated in individual and collective projects, artist-in-residence programs, and exhibitions in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, Georgia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, Cyprus, and Turkey. She is a member of the HemCereyan artist collective, which conducts performative artistic research through a site-specific, process-oriented, and transdisciplinary approach. She continues her work in Istanbul and teaches courses in contemporary art, visual communication design, and new media at various universities.