We are delighted to welcome curator and arts writer Özge Ersoy to a research residency at Spring Workshop with the generous support of SAHA Assocation. Ersoy has developed her curatorial practice through editorial projects and programming for art spaces in Istanbul, New York, and Cairo, with institutional priorities ranging from collecting to the creation of civic spaces. These experiences in various art communities have provided the foundational questions for her research: How do art institutions shape artistic production, and how do artists influence the development of art spaces? Most recently, she is exploring what types of long-term artistic/cultural engagements we need in places where there is a constant negotiation of historical ruptures and a feeling of mourning. A key question for her research regards how exhibition and collecting practices in Hong Kong formulate indirect political attitudes toward the present.

Özge Ersoy is a curator and arts writer based in Istanbul. She is the program manager of collectorspace, a nonprofit organization that brings private art collections to public view and promotes critical discussions and writing on contemporary art collecting practices. She is also the managing editor of m-est.org, an online publication conceived as an artist-centered initiative. Most recently Özge acted as assistant curator of Sarkis: Respiro at the Pavilion of Turkey in the International Venice Biennale (2015) and was the artistic director of the artist-run initiative 5533 in Istanbul (2014). She is the editor of Fatma Bucak: I must say a word about fear (2014), Telegenic with Ekberzade, SPOT (2014), and How to Begin? Envisioning the Impact of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, CCS Bard (2010). She holds an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.