Begüm Yamanlar (Turkey) is an artist and academic whose practice is primarily based in photography and video. Her work explores transcorporeality, posthuman relations, and material processes, using superimposition, temporal layering, and spatial entanglements to speculate on large-scale material and geological transformations. Her research considers how bodies, matter, and environments co-constitute one another beyond human-centred perception.
During her residency, Yamanlar will develop Notes on Becoming, a long-term project investigating spatial memory and material processes through photography and moving image. Focusing on water, sediment, and the tidal rhythms of the Thames, alongside London’s conservation landscapes, the project considers how elemental processes reveal layered traces of ecological and historical memory, approaching the city as a living archive.
Recent exhibitions include Panorama: Dreams and Places at Istanbul Modern (2026); TERRA at Hautes Côtes-Apsara Studio, Beaune (2024); Far Close at Izmir Museum of Arts & Sculpture (2023); Khora at Öktem Aykut Gallery, Istanbul (2023); Rounded By Sleep at Arter Museum, Istanbul (2022); Grief and Pleasure at Odunpazarı Modern Museum (OMM), Eskişehir (2022); Yesterday Today Istanbul at Sakıp Sabancı Museum (2021); and The Surface of the World: Architecture and the Moving Image at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila (2014). Her video book Territory was published by Contemporary Istanbul x BookLabBio.
Yamanlar holds a PhD in Cinema and Media Studies from Bahçeşehir University (2024), an MA in Visual Arts from Sabancı University (2015), and a BA in Photography and Video from Bahçeşehir University (2012). She has also been an artist-in-residence at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2025) and Casa Dell’Arte in Bodrum (2016). She currently lectures in Visual Arts, Photography, and Video Art at Istanbul Bilgi University.
Yamanlar was born in Istanbul, Turkey and is currently based there.
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