JURY

Pelin Başaran / Performing Arts Curator and Producer

She leads the artistic program of Contact Theatre in Manchester. After graduating from the Department of Public Administration and Political Science at Middle East Technical University, she completed her master’s degree at the Atatürk Institute of Boğaziçi University. She was part of the founding team of the contemporary performance venue garajistanbul, where she worked as international projects manager. She served as founder and director of the non-profit PARC, which aims to contribute to artistic development in the performing arts. She launched the initiative Siyah Bant – Freedom of Expression in the Arts, where she continues to work as a researcher and co-director.  

Ayşe Draz / Artist

  She pursues her research and artistic work in the field of performance. She completed her undergraduate studies in Theatre, International Studies and Comparative Literature at Northwestern University and, after a year at Bard College Berlin, her master’s degree in the Department of Performing Arts at Middlesex University. She worked on many projects with Studio Oyuncuları as assistant director, actor and instructor. She worked as dramaturg with Ayşe Orhon (Hava/2010) and Gizem Bilgen (Hiatus/2014), and as performer and assistant director with Semih Fırıncıoğlu (İKİ/2017). Together with Anne-Marije Van Den Bersselaar from the Netherlands, she designed and ran Dramaturgy Lab 1.0 in Istanbul (Aksanat/2017). With German artist Marlin de Haan, she designed and directed the performative installation “Once I set foot Outside” (2018) and the performance “panorama radio” (2019). Since 2006 she has collaborated with :mentalKLINIK in various processes such as research and production. In 2018 she founded Tiyatro Hemhâl together with Hakan Emre Ünal and Nezaket Erden. She is a member of the Theatre Critics Association and the performing arts editor of Art Unlimited magazine.  

Melih Gençboyacı / Artist, Curator, Hatha Yoga Teacher

  He is an artist, curator and Hatha Yoga teacher. While studying Economics at Bursa Uludağ University, he transferred to the Acting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Dokuz Eylül University. After graduating, he joined the Mime Department of the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in the Netherlands on a special scholarship. After graduating from there, he continued his work as part of collectives such as Schwalbe and Copycats. In 2017 he took a break from his work in the performing arts and became a Hatha Yoga teacher. He then received his master’s degree from the “DAS Theatre - Extended Curation” program in Amsterdam. As a curator, he continued to explore forms of protest by creating new rituals that could serve as a vehicle for political redefinition. In connection with this, he founded “The Embassy Series.” He worked as an arts advisor on internationalization at Performing Arts Fund NL and on cultural projects for the Municipality of The Hague. Alongside his own curatorial practice, for the past two years he has served as Artistic Coordinator of Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, Theater Rotterdam’s research and development institution supporting the development of new-generation artists.  

S.Buse Yıldırım / Arts and Culture Director, Beykoz Kundura

  A young cultural entrepreneur and film artist based in Istanbul. Driven by her interest in the creative sector and in different cultures, she first completed a foundation degree in art and design in Brighton. As she discovered contemporary art, she turned toward theory, completing her bachelor’s degree in Theoretical Art History in the Visual Cultures department at Goldsmiths, University of London, and working on various exhibition projects. Her desire to focus on film and video took her to Paris, where she completed a second bachelor’s degree in documentary directing at the ESEC film school. Since 2012 she has been shaping the arts and culture identity of Beykoz Kundura, a place she had long dreamed of. Having launched Beykoz Kundura’s oral history and archive project, Kundura Hafıza, Yıldırım serves as arts and culture director and curator of Kundura Sahne and Kundura Sinema. Through the production company she founded during the same period, Lita, she designs various audiovisual projects while realizing her own film/video projects through ethnographic practices. She completed her master’s degree in Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin in 2019.