Aylime Asli Demir curatorial visit

SEA Foundation has the pleasure of hosting Aylime Aslı Demir from Turkey, who is a writer, curator, and activist. Demir studied Public Administration, Political Science and Women’s Studies. Since 2010, she has been working on editorial and curatorial projects dealing with the politics and aesthetics of bringing together diverse knowledge and practices in exhibitions and publications. From 2013, she is the Academic and Cultural Studies Programme coordinator and the editor-in-chief of Kaos GL the main Gay and Lesbian Cultural Research and Solidarity Association in Turkey. She lectured at Ankara University on Gender and Women’s studies and has been the coordinator of Feminist Forum which gathers together prominent feminists and LGBTI+ activists around the world in Ankara. Additionally, Demir is a jury member of Women to Women Story Contest organised since 2006 in order to encourage women writers to write about their lesbian–bisexual stories.

Work

Apart from her editor career, Aylime Aslı Demir has been active in the framework of exhibitions, conferences, and community work. Some of her recent activities include curating the group show “Betwixt and Between” in 2023 at Sanatorium in Istanbul. In 2022 she was a participant at Slavs and Tatars residency that was supported by SAHA. Aylime Asli Demir curated “Unpredictable Times: Queering Politics in Turkey” at, MUCEM in Marseille in 2019. She attended the Young Curators Academy at Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin in 2019. Furthermore “At least three fingers;” still life lessons from a queer feminist activist, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe 2019, Dislocations in Queer Art, Kara Art Studio, Kocaeli, 2019; Read My World Literature Festival, Amsterdam, 2018; Vanishing Mediator, Evliyagil Museum, Ankara, 2018; Colony, Queering the Posthuman, Schwules Museum, Berlin, 2018; Colony, Queering the Posthuman, Abud Efendi Mansion, Istanbul.

Ankara Queer Art

Aylime Aslı Demir established international Ankara Queer Art Residency in Ankara in 2019. The House for Art is open to applications from all around the world to promote production processes. The program hosts visual artists from Turkey and abroad and provides artists with 8 weeks of both living and working space while supporting and promoting production and research processes. During this time, artists have the opportunity to work with artists, activists, researchers, and curators from Turkey.