Deniz Gul lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey where she received her BA in Visual Arts and
Communication Design.
Gul uses photography; video, objects and text to create works of art that examine
construction of identity and space through social roles, urban myths and representation.
Dealing with the matter's conditions of existence, she deconstructs her subjects to
capture and develop a newer reality. In her recent video series Mama Stop! (2008, Tokyo)
she depicts on parental control over a child in different settings and reproduces codes of
behavior via spatial arguments over women’s identity and her role in the society. Her
latest photography series Backyard and Façade (2008, Ýstanbul) exposes the use of an
early 19th century –the so called baroque and western- architectural site to a narrative
which fancies fictive characters to go around cultural, social and practical rituals. The
piece reproduces the cult of western influence on the orient and imagines the cultural
artifacts in a staged wedding.
Gul’s artistic practice involves public interventions or site specific productions; she
is also a writer for various magazines and a blogger about contemporary culture, arts,
design and urban life. In 2008, Gul’s fictive-documentary work Zeytinburnu Monologues
was published as a part of “Urban Makers – Parallel Narratives of Grassroots Practices
and Tensions”. The same year she participated in Tokyo Wonder Site residency program and
exposed in “Post-it Cities”, Centre De Cultura Contemporania (Barcelona). Her work has
been shown recently in Lille, during the Lille300 as a part of “Istanbul Traversee”
exhibition, Palais des Beaux Artes.
