Yelta Köm (b.1986, Istanbul) is an artist who brings together architectural, artistic, and spatial practices to discuss social and political issues. Environmental perception, urban imagery, neoliberal transformations, tensions between nature and technology, collective movements and migration often inspire his work. Collaboration is a crucial part of Köm’s practice, which involves various methodologies and materials. His work is centered around landforms, technology, critical approaches to environment and communities, urban surveillance methodologies, data mapping systems, architectural technologies, oral and cinematographic storytelling, and the questioning of representation techniques. Köm received his undergraduate degree from the Department of Architecture at Yıldız Technical University and completed his master’s degree at the Städelschule Academy of Fine Arts. He is a co-founder of Herkes İçin Mimarlık (Architecture for All), a non-profit organization devoted to offering approaches to social problems in Turkey from an architectural perspective. He participated in Micro Residency (Athens) in 2018 and in SAHA Studio (as part of the Silent University Orientation Program) in 2022. Köm’s personal and collective works have been exhibited in several biennials, museums, galleries and art institutions such as Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul Design Biennial, Venice Architecture Biennale, Istanbul Modern Museum, MAXXI Museum (Rome), Goethe-Institut (Athens, Ankara), SALT (Istanbul), V&A Museum (London), nGbK (Berlin), The Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery UM (Prague), transmediale vorspiel Silent Green (Berlin), Chicago Architecture Biennial, TOP e.V (Berlin), Venice Biennale of Architecture, Galerie UM (Prague), Venice Biennale of Art Versus Art Project (Istanbul). He will also give talks and presentations various institutions such as Deutsches Architektur Museum, Frankfurt, ACC Galerie Weimar, HKW Berlin. He is based in Berlin.

Ulya Soley works at Pera Museum. She completed her MA in Culture, Criticism and Curation at Central Saint Martins, and her BA in Art History and Psychology at McGill University. Her recent curatorial projects include Souvenirs of the Future and A Question of Taste at Pera Museum, all familiar, all foreign at Versus Art Project, and How shall we dress for the occasion? at 601 Artspace in New York. She’s done editorial work for various artist books and magazines and her writing appeared in publications such as Texte zur Kunst, Art agenda, Sanat Dünyamız, Argonotlar, Manifold, and Art unlimited.

Yelta Köm and Ulya Soley are residents at the Tarabya Cultural Academy from February to May 2024 as part of the German-Turkish co-production fellowships supported by the Allianz Foundation.