Eylem Ertürk

Eylem Ertürk (Vienna/Istanbul) is a practitioner-researcher working at the intersection of art, politics, memory and public space. She is the co-founder of Shared Walks which creates social encounters and critical spaces by walking in cities. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna as an ÖAW Doc-Fellow* working on The Politics of the Balcony in Contemporary Art.

She received her B.A. from İstanbul Technical University in Management Engineering (1999), an M.A. in Photography at Marmara University Institute of Fine Arts in İstanbul (2007), and an M.A. in Social Design_Arts as Urban Innovation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2019). She was a CEC ArtsLink Fellow at Rose Art Museum and the Programme in Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University, MA, USA (2016). Since 2005, she has initiated and led several art projects and worked as a researcher, editor, curator and manager focusing on socially engaged artistic practices and local cultural policies. She taught at Istanbul Bilgi University Arts and Cultural Management Program (2006-2015) and edited the book Local Cultural Policies Handbook: Steps, Tools and Case Studies (2011). Dealing with cultural dialogue through arts at Anadolu Kültür (2010-2017), she has developed and managed many projects in different cities in Turkey, including BAK: Revealing the City through Memory. She was the co-curator of the Memory and Arts project (2018-2021) by Hafıza Merkezi (Truth Justice Memory Center) in Turkey and co-editor of the book Talks on Memory and Arts 2020. 

* Recipient of a DOC Fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Art Theory and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2023-2024).