Istanbul-Berlin Residency Program

Since 2018, two scholarships have been granted annually to artists who live in Istanbul. The existing Istanbul stipend of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe was expanded to a true exchange, with a jury annually selecting two artists from Istanbul to be sent to Berlin and vice versa. The aim is to further enhance the relations between the partner cities of Berlin and Istanbul as well as the connections to the Turkish art scene. This is done with the conviction that international exchange and direct communication allow cultural diversity be experienced as an enrichment, inviting people to a change in perspective.
The scholarship takes place as part of a cooperation between the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) and ZK/U (from 2018 to mid 2021), from June of 2021 on with Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, and DEPO in Istanbul.

Serpil Polat

January 15 – June 15, 2025

Serpil Polat’s artistic work focuses on issues of identity, gender, ecology, the city and memory, and develops a unique narrative language at the intersection of these areas. While the artist uses photography as a tool to understand and tell the stories of the places where she lives, she also uses different media such as video, sound and editing to reinforce her narrative. Documentary photographic works are at the heart of her productions, and she aims to make visible the different layers of reality in such works. Polat positions her art as a means of dialogue and confrontation, shedding light on not only individual but also social issues through the themes she addresses.

Beelitz-Heilstätten, located in south-west of Berlin, is a place with a deep social memory. Known as Hitler’s private hospital, the building was used to treat wounded soldiers during the First and Second World Wars and served as a military hospital for the Red Army after 1945. Continuing her work on abandoned sites of memory, the artist aims to document how Beelitz-Heilstätten and similar buildings contribute to social confrontation, to the act of reckoning with the past and the construction of memory. Through her documentary photographic work, she aims to make visible the historical realities and alternative discourses of these sites.

Serpil Polat graduated from the Department of Photography at Kocaeli University’s Faculty of Fine Arts,. Her photographic works have been published in various magazines and she has participated in many national and international exhibitions. Between 2012 and 2020, she has been an active member of NarPhotos collective. As a member of Zin Collective, the artist focuses on individual photography projects and produces works that address social, cultural and individual issues using the possibilities of documentary photography. 

rezzan gümgüm

July 15 – December 15, 2024

From July to December 2024, rezzan gümgüm will be the recipient of the „Berlin Senate Istanbul-Berlin Residency“ stipend. Her artistic practice spans various mediums including performance, video, installation, photography, and embroidery on fabric. Within her diverse body of work, she explores themes such as identity, gender, war, conflicts, forced displacement, and biodiversity, all within the broader contexts of ecology, politics, and society. Through her art, she delves into both personal and collective experiences within the structured routines of everyday life. She is a founding member of the Rê collective, an art group with a critical focus on the Mesopotamian region, that utilizes public spaces as platforms for artistic expression, aiming to create inclusive art accessible to all.

In Berlin, gümgüm intends to further develop her ongoing project titled Goat on the Mountain, Moon in the Sky, Fish in the Water, which examines cultural and biological diversity, as well as daily life in Dersim, where nature and local culture intertwine. Her work prompts a reconsideration of humanity’s epistemological connection to the natural world, particularly timely as global biodiversity faces imminent threats.

During her residency, gümgüm plans to engage with individuals across generations whose families were forcibly displaced from the Dersim region to Berlin, as well as with NGOs addressing issues faced by immigrant women in the city.

Between 2007 and 2020, gümgüm studied art at Hacettepe University in Ankara, at Madrid Complutense University, at Gazi University in Ankara and at Macerata Accademia di Belli Arti, Macerata, Italy. Her works and performances have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Turkey and abroad, among the most recent as part of the video screening Antiwarcoalition.art at ZKM, Karlsruhe.

The stipend of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion is made possible in the frame of a cooperation between the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) and the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin as well as DEPO in Istanbul.