Pınar Öğrenci – Fellowship Program „Weltoffenes Berlin“

Pınar Öğrenci (b. 1973, Van, Turkey) is an artist and a writer based in Istanbul and Berlin. Öğrenci uses various media in her artistic practice, including photography, video, performance and installation. Her works address subjects such as migration, war, forced displacement, collective movements, nationalism and urban transformation. Using video as a tool to record her daily life practices, she benefits from her personal video archive and ready-made footages. Her works have been exhibited widely at museums and art institutions including 12th Gwangju Biennial (2018), Tensta Konsthall Stockholm (2018), Jewish Museum Hohenems (2018), Württembergischer Kunstverein (WKV) Stuttgart (2017), the Istanbul off-site project for Sharjah Biennial13 (2017), University of Applied Arts Vienna (2016), MAXXI Museum, Rome (2015-6), SALT Galata, Istanbul (2015-6),  De Las Fronteras Biennial, Tamaulipas (2015) and Depo, Istanbul (2014-8). Her first solo exhibition abroad was realized under the title “A Gentle Breeze Passed Over Us” at KunstHausWien, Museum Hundertwasser in Vienna in 2017.

She is the founder and organizer of MARSistanbul, an art initiative launched in 2010. Since the late 1990s, Öğrenci has extensively written on contemporary art and architecture in magazines including Agos, Radikal, ArtUnlimited, m-est, SALT Online, Arkitera, Arredemento Mimarlık, XXI, İstanbul, dissident blog. She has participated in the residency programs of HIAP, Helsinki (2017), Henie Onstad Kunstcenter, Oslo (2016), R.A.T., Mexico City (2015), Willa Waldberta, Munich (2010), as well as in festival, workshop and research programs, such as ‘Contemporary Geographies’, Summer School (Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Kuldiga, Latvia, 2018), Migration and Symbols, Lecture Series (Leuphana University, Luneburg, Germany, 2017), Public Calling Conference at National Theatre Oslo (2016), Middle East Festival, Henie Onstad Kunstcenter, Oslo (2016), “Plataforma Editable, Desplazamientos Curatoriales: Santiago, Valparaiso, Antofagasta, Tarabaca” in Chile (2015), “Public Space and Museums” at the CIMAM conference in Rio de Janerio (2013). She is currently engaged with LED Light City Istanbul, a multi-channel video installation to be exhibited in Athens Biennial 2018.

Since July 2018, she is a Fellow at District Berlin. With her lecture performance Purple Panic: 43, she participates in the series Revolt she said – decolonial and feminist perspectives on 68. She is also part of the Caring for Conflict project.