AARON YOUNG
Artist
Aaron Young was born in San Francisco, in 1972. After attending the San Francisco Art Institute, he received an MFA from
Yale University in 2004. Young’s artwork explores the after effects of dynamic and energetic performances, using hired participants stereotyped by their identities, such as skateboarders and motorcyclists.
His work has been exhibited internationally, in spaces including the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, The Whitney Biennial in 2006, The Serpentine Gallery, London 2006, and the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2007. He lives and works in New York City.
ALİ AKAY
Lecturer, Art Critic, Curator
Prof. Dr. Ali Akay was born in Istanbul in 1957. He studied sociology, philosophy and politics at Paris VIII University, and graduated in 1979. He completed his doctoral degree in philosophy at his alma mater in 1986. Akay has taught at the Sociology Department of Mimar Sinan University. He received a title of Associate Professor in 1992, and became a Professor in 1998. He has published many articles and books on art-sociology and philosophy in Turkish, French, German and English magazines, books and catalogues such as “Konu-m-lar”, “Michel Foucault İktidar & Direnme Odakları”, “İstanbul’da Rock Hayatı”, “Kıvrımlar”, “Postmodern Görüntu”, “Armağan”, “Sanatın Sosyolojik Gözü”, “Minör Politika”, “Sanatın ve Sosyolojinin Ruh Hali”, “Kapitalizm ve Pop Kültür”, “Tekil Düşünce”, and “Sanatın Durumları”.
Akay has organized and curated numerous art exhibitions in national and international galleries and museums. He is an art curator and art adviser of Istanbul Modern and Akbank Culture and Art Center.
Alphan Eşeli
Director, Screenwriter
Alphan Eseli is a Turkish film director and screenwriter. He started his career as a commercial and music video director and photographer. His first feature film - The Long Way Home was written and directed by Eseli and was released in 2013. The film has won numerous prestigous international prizes including the Fipresci Prize, Golden Zenith at the Montreal World Film Festival, New Talent ward at Hong Kong Film Festival. It was also nominated for the Sutherland Award at the 57th BFI London Film Festival.
ANDREW DOMİNİK
Film Director, Screen Writer
Andrew Dominik was born in New-Zealand in 1967. Dominik has lived in Australia since he was 2, where he graduated from Melbourne’s Swinburne Film School in 1988.
His career in film began in 2000 when he directed “Chopper” based on notorious Australian criminal Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read, starring Eric Bana. The film was received to critical acclaim, winning “Best Director” at the Australian Film Institute. His next film “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” starred Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, based on the novel of the same title. The film received two Academy Award nominations for “Best Cinematography” and “Best Supporting Actor”.
An upcoming project by Dominik is titled “Blonde”. Based on Joyce Carol Oates’ fictional Marilyn Monroe memoir of the same name, Naomi Watts is cited as playing the role of Marilyn.
Ayşe Kulin
Novelist
Following her graduation at the American College in Istanbul, Ayse Kulin worked as an editor for several newspapers and magazines, as well film. Her first novel: “Adi: Aylin” (Aylin, She Walks in Beauty like the Night) sold more than 400,000 copies, on the best seller list.
Kulin holds many fiction awards, her novel “Farewell” was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC 2011 International Award.
She is the most widely read author in Turkey, according to the statistics of Focus magazine. Her novels are published in 19 languages including English, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Dutch, Spanish and Portugese. She currently serves as the Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, since 2007.
Barbaros Altuğ
Author
After working in several magazines, Barbaros Altug started the Istanbul Copyright Agency, the first literary agency representing Turkish authors in 1999. His list of writers includes the greatest names in Turkish literature like Ayse Kulin, Latife Tekin, Hasan Ali Toptas, Halit Ziya Usakligil, Buket Uzuner, Kursat Basar, Mehmet Murat Somer and Halide Edip Adivar. The works of the writers he represents have been published in more than 40 countries. He published a work of fiction in Turkish and Greek with 12 writers from Istanbul called ‘’Istanbul of Writers’’ and is working on a Turkish Literature Series project with US Publisher Dalkey Archive to publish selected Turkish authors in English. Barbaros Altuğ wrote a column in daily Taraf, published his essays in Some Like it Hot in 2013 and published his first novel “we’re good here” in 2014 which will be turned into a movie in 2015.
CARINE ROITFELD
Fashion Editor
Carine Roitfeld is one of the leading and visionary figures in the fashion world, collaborating with the biggest names, as well as being a legend-status style icon. Roitfeld began modelling at the age of 18, then become a writer and stylist for French Elle. She collaborated with Mario Testino doing advertising and shoots for American and French Vogue for six years, as well as consulting for Tom Ford at Gucci, and YSL, and contributing to the images of Missoni, Versace and Calvin Klein. She was approached by Conde Nast in 2001 to edit Vogue Paris, a title she held for ten years.
Roitfeld resigned from her position at Vogue Paris, to concentrate on personal projects. As well as freelance styling for Chanel and Barneys New York, she set up CR Fashion Book, quoted by her as being:
“Something totally different, because I don’t want to get bored myself or to bore my readers.”
CECILIA DEAN
Co-Founder of Visionaire
A longtime central figure in New York’s cultural landscape, Cecilia Dean was a pioneer in the cross-pollination of fashion and art, having co-created Visionaire, the limited edition publication, in 1991. A former model, she’s been photographed by Richard Avedon, Mario Testino and Steven Meisel, whilst studying French and English literature at Colombia University. Dean oversees Visionaire while also serving as a visiting professor in Communication Design Parsons. She has lectured in New York, Moscow, Hamburg and Zurich. Long admired for her sense of style, Dean has been cited on numerous international best-dressed lists.
CHARLIE SIEM
Violinist
Born in London to a Norweigan father and a British mother, Charlie began to play the violin at the age of three, after hearing Yehudi Menuhin perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Charlie was educated at Eton College, and read music at Girton College, Cambridge, studying violin with Itzhak Rashkovsky and Shlomo Mintz.
He has performed on the greatest stages from the Royal Albert Hall to Carnegie Hall, as well as toured with Moscow Symphony Orchestra with Yuri Simonov, and the Czech National Symphony with Libor Pesek. Charlie has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic.Aside from classical musicians, Charlie has performed with The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend at the Royal Albert Hall, and has Dueted with Bryan Adams in concert, honouring the bygone tradition on writing virtuosic variations of a popular tune.
In 2012, Charlie toured Europe and North America. His festival appearances include Oslo Chamber Music Festival and the Yehudi Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. He will be performed on a PBS television to air in 2012, with a US tour to follow.
CHIARA CLEMENTE
Director
Chiara Clemente is a film director who explores identity, cultural contrast, and the creative process. Her love of art can be traced back to her childhood, tiptoeing around her father’s paintings. In 2000 she directed her for RAI in Italy. Her first feature documentary, Our City Dreams, follows five women artists (Nancy Spero, Marina Abramovic, Kiki Smith, Ghada Amer and Swoon) who live and work in New York City. It was received to critical acclaim, premiering at New York City’s Film Forum in February 2009, screening in more than 30 cities worldwide and being broadcasted on the Sundance Channel.Since making her feature, Chiara has directed for Saatchi and Saatchi, T Magazine of the New York Ties, Levi’s, Apple, and Wieden+Kennedy.
Most recently she has created and directed two seasons of Beginnings, an original short film series for the Sundance Channel, which won a Webby Award in 2012. She is currently developing her first narrative feature.
EMRE AROLAT
Architect
Born in Ankara in 1963, Emre Arolat graduated from Galatasaray Lycee in 1982, then the MSU School of Architecture in 1986. Between 1986-87, he worked in the Metcalf Bureau of Architecture in Washington D.C., going on to complete his master’s degree in the MSU School of Architecture.
Between 1987-2004 he worked as an associate designer at Arolat Architects, going on to found EAA-Emre Arolat Architects in 2004. He is a workshop supervisor as well as a jury member in UU, IKU, ITU, METU, YTU, MSGSU and Bilgi University.
The scales of his projects range from buildings, large-scale housing estates, public and private management structures, shopping centres, museums, concert halls, library and cultural buildings, industrial buildings, educational complexes, airports and recreational areas.
Ferzan Özpetek
Director
Ozpetek was born in Istanbul in 1959 and he moved to Italy to study film history in Rome La Sapienza University in 1976.
His first film, ‘‹l Bagno Turco - Hammam’ , premiered in May 1997 in Italian theaters as well as being a part of Cannes Film Festivals’ most prestigious Quinzaine des Realizatuers category.
Ozpetek’s second feature film Harem Suare, met with the audiences in 1999. Ozpetek third film, “Le Fate Ignoranti - Ignorant Fairies’ was acclaimed as one of the most important agenda items of 2001, won numerous awards.
In 2003, “La Finestra di Fronte - Facing the Windows”, in 2005, his fifth film, “Sacro Cuore - Sacred Heart” and in 2007,
“Saturno Contro - A Lifetime Is Not Enough” also became an international success and won numerous awards.
He directed an anonymous film, “Un Giorno Perfetto - Mükemmel Bir Gün” gained a big success at 65th Venice International Film Festival, same year the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), exhibited a showcase his seven films including of Ferzan Ozpetek.
İlker Canıklıgil
Director
Born on 1972 in Istanbul he gratuated from Saint Joseph French College in 1991. and attended Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty Department of Film TV. He won 14 National and International awards with his short films between 1992 and 2002. “Simulacra” (2001) was awarded with “Special Mention” in 24th Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival’s Digital Competition in 2002. He lectured in Istanbul Bilgi University Film TV department between 1999 and 2006. His translation of Walter Murch’ “In The Blink of An Eye” is published in 2005 by Bilgi University Press.
In 2006 he left the university to follow a freelance career in filmmaking. He edited “Gen – The Gene” a feature film by Togan Gökbakar in 2006 and won “Best Editing” Award in Adana Film Festival in 2007 Ilker Canikligil has worked as a freelance TV commercial director and has resided in Istanbul since 2007.
JEFFERSON HACK
Editor, Publisher of Dazed & Confused, AnOther Mag
Jefferson Hack was born on 20th June 1971. He is the maverick editorial director, and publisher of the Dazed Group, whose pioneering work over the past 20 years with his ground-breaking magazines Dazed & Confused, AnOther Magazine and Another Man have seen him constantly redefine cutting edge journalism, film, photography, television and digital media.
Early cover stars profiled by Hack include Bjork (who in July 2011 was the special guest editor of the landmark 200th issue), Bono and David Bowie and numerous influential iconoclasts, all of whom have continued to support and contribute to Dazed over the magazine’s celebrated two decades of autonomous thinking.
Read by over 500,000 worldwide style leaders a month, Dazed &Confused is today the most influential and successful independent magazine on the planet, with Jefferson Hack at the helm. In 2001 Hack launched the luxury biannual AnOther Magazine, followed by Another Man in 2005, the single definitive guide to men’s fashion, luxury and culture, with Hack as Editor in Chief of both.
MARIO SORRENTI
Fashion Photographer
Born in Naples, Italy in 1971, Mario moved to New York with his family at the age of ten. He grew up exposed to a creative environment, with his father being an artist and his mother working in the fashion industry.
Mario started documenting his life through photography in his teens, believing in his images, and standing strong against compromise, thus developing a highly unique approach. After coming to the attention to several creative directors, Calvin Klein commissioned him to shoot for the advertising campaigns of their collections and Obsession fragrance. He has shot editorials for French Vogue, Italian Vogue, V Magazine, W Magazine, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Self Service, AnOther Magazine, Arena Homme Plus and Vogue Hommes International. Aside from his publications, Marios Sorrenti’s work has appeared in solo exhibitions at Gallery 213, Paris, Ferrini and Biondi in Los Angeles, and Roth Horowitz in New York. His photographs have been shown at the Festival de la Mode in Monaco, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Photographic work by Sorrenti is held in the collections of the Victoria & Museum, Tate Modern, New York Public Library, and the National Portrait Gallery London. In 2012 Mario was selected as the photographer for the Pirelli Calendar.
MARK ROMANEK
Director
Mark Romanek’s directorial skills move adeptly between commercials, music videos and feature films. His daring beautifully crafted work has gained critical and commercial acclaim worldwide.
Writing as well as directing, his film “One Hour Photo” starred Robin Williams, and his second feature film “Never Let Me Go” starred Keira Knightly, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield.Romanek’s commercial work is responsible for Apple’s iconic Ipod silhouette spots, directing over two dozen adverts for them. He has also directed commercials for Amex, Nike, Brand Jordan, ESPN, Heineken, Nikon, Target, Kia, Chrysler and Honda to name a few. In addition to his commercial credits, he has directed numerous music videos for musical icons such as Johnny Cash, Coldplay, Michael and Janet Jackson, Jay-Z, Lenny Kravitz, Madonna and REM amongst others.
Being a prolific and celebrate director of music videos has gathered more than twenty MTV VMA’s, three Grammy awards, a CMA, and three Billboard Music Awards. MTV awarded Romanek a Video Vanguard Award in 1997, for his overall contribution to the medium.
MELTEM CUMBUL
Actress
Meltem Cumbul is one of the most recognized and appreciated stage and cinema actresses in Turkey. Her career spans over sixteen feature films, including “Duvari Karsi” (Head On), which won the Berlin Golden Bear Award, and six television series including the most successful series ever in Turkish television history “Yilan Hikayesi”.
On stage she has appeared in productions such as “Smokey Joe’s Café”, and “The Taming of the Shrew”.
Meltem’s awards include a Palm Springs International Film Festival Award, and an Antalya Altin Portakal Film Festival Award. In 2005, she worked with Eric Morris in Los Angeles on method acting for three years, and she now lectures at Mimar Sinan University on theatre, where she also graduated from.
NATE LOWMAN
Artist
Nate Lowman was born in Las Vegas in 1979. Having obtained a BS from NYU in 2001, he works on painting, sculpture and multimedia installation. He uses objects and images taken from global media and American cultural sources and reconfigures postmodern techniques of collage, appropriation and assemblage.
Nate has exhibited at Museum of Modern Art/P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, and widely throughout the U.S. and internationally.Aside from exhibiting, he has also curated several group exhibitions including Beneath the Underdog at the Gagosian New York in 2007, and Al-Qaeda is the CIA, a Sue Williams survey at 303 Gallery New York in 2010.
The artist lives and works in Tribeca, New York.
PELIN BATU
Actress
Pelin Batu is a Turkish actress and TV personality. Due to her father İnal Batu’s occupation as a diplomat, she spent her childhood in many foreign countries including Pakistan, Czech Republic, France and the USA. She completed high school at Marymount School in New York and also pursued musical and theatre training at Mannes College of Music. After starting literature and philosophy at New York University, she switched her subject to history and completed it at Boğaziçi University. She made her film debut in Ferzan Özpetek’s Harem Suare in 1999 and has gone on to act with several more films and TV series.
Batu also hosted a show titled Tarihin Arka Odası (The Back Room of History) which aired on HaberTürk with Murat Bardakçı and Erhan Afyoncu. Interested in poetry from a young age, she has written, translated, and published many poems. Her first book of poetry “Glass” was published in 2003, followed by “The Book of Winds” in 2009. Having written poems from the age of eight, she is currently doing a Phd in literature in Bogazici University. She has written two books named: Glass and The Book of Winds.
Pınar Yolaçan
Born in Ankara, Turkey in 1981, Pinar Yolacan started her academia by initially studying fashion at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, then going on to study Fine Art Media at Chelsea School of Art, and ultimately graduating from the Cooper Union with a BFA in 2004.Pinar Yolacan, who is best known for her portraits of ladies wearing clothes fashioned from meat parts (tripe, guts, assorted offal).
Yolacan has had solo shows at Rivington Arms Gallery in New York, Yapi Kredi Foundation in Istanbul, The Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki, and the Center for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work has been present in important group shows such as Art Robe, UNESCO, Paris, Art and Commerce
Festival of Emerging Photographers, New York. , Turkish
Realities; Positions in Contemporary Photography from Turkey, Fotographie Forum International, Frankfurt, Tracking Traces, LIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. As well as the ICP, Martin Gropius-Bau, and the Saatchi Gallery London.
Since 1997, reviews about Pinar’s have regularly appeared in the New York Times, Art in America, ArtReview, Bidoun and i-D Magazines, to name a few. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
ROBIN RHODE
Artist
Robin Rhode was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1976. He uses photography, performance, drawing and sculpture, charcoal, chalk and paint to comment on urban youth culture, postcolonial context, and society at large.
Robin graduated from the South African School of Film, Television and Dramatic Arts in Johannesburg, in 2000.
Given his first major museum solo show by Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, in 2007, Robin has since had major solo exhibitions at a number of museums around the world, including the Hayward Gallery, London, The Wexner Center for the Arts, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has participated in notable group exhibitions, such as this year’s Sydney Biennale, Staging Action: Performance in Photography Since 1960, Museum of Modern Art (2011), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), and the New Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, (2005). The artist lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Tuluğ Tırpan
Pianist
Born in Istanbul, he was accepted to the Bilkent University College of Music and Performing Arts in 1989 with a full scholarship. He studied piano with Martin Berkofsky and Namik Sultanov and studied counterpoint and harmony with Sami Hatipoglu. His first album “Elvira Madigan” Mozart’s D Major 21. Piano Concerto K.V. 467 was released in November 1998
recorded with the Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Nayden Todorov. The festivals he has attended and performed at are: Homage to Richard Staruss, Meiningen Opera Orchestra, Silver Bay Summer Festival USA Canada tour (75th anniversary celebrations of the Turkish Republic), C.R.R First Piano Festival and the Istanbul and Jeunesse Bach Festival. In 2002, inspired by George Orwell’s 1984 book, Mr. Tirpan composed his musical “HEARTS, going on to direct 2004 the Scherzo Summer Festival. His 2005 his album “My Red Color” which is a collection of his works was released in Europe on the Fishtank label.
ZOE CASSAVETES
Screen Writer, Director, Actress
Zoe Cassavetes grew up in Los Angeles and worked on many productions as a director, writer, producer and actress. In the 1990’s, she teamed up with friend Sofia Coppola to make the TV show Hi-Octane, one of the first shows to be entirely shot in digital video. Zoe also did stints as ahost of MTV’s House of Style, as well as assistant directing feature films.Several years later, Zoe directed her short film “Men Make Women Crazy Theory” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (2000). In 2007 she made her first feature film “Broken English”. Zoe has made numerous commercials for clients like Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton and Johnnie Walker and music videos and as a photographer for high fashion magazines aswell as many campaigns such as Dom Perignon and Martel. Zoe is preparing her second film to shoot in fall 2012.
AARON YOUNG
Artist
ALİ AKAY
Lecturer, Art Critic, Curator
Alphan Eşeli
Director, Screenwriter
ANDREW DOMİNİK
Film Director, Screen Writer
Ayşe Kulin
Novelist
Barbaros Altuğ
Author
CARINE ROITFELD
Fashion Editor
CECILIA DEAN
Co-Founder of Visionaire
CHARLIE SIEM
Violinist
CHIARA CLEMENTE
Director
EMRE AROLAT
Architect
Ferzan Özpetek
Director
İlker Canıklıgil
Director
JEFFERSON HACK
Editor, Publisher of Dazed & Confused, AnOther Mag
MARIO SORRENTI
Fashion Photographer
MARK ROMANEK
Director
MELTEM CUMBUL
Actress
NATE LOWMAN
Artist
PELIN BATU
Actress
Pınar Yolaçan
ROBIN RHODE
Artist
Tuluğ Tırpan
Pianist
ZOE CASSAVETES
Screen Writer, Director, Actress
