Material: Biomaterial

Contemporary Art and Ecological Experiments (Production Workshop for Artists)

“Material: Biomaterial”

Workshop Facilitator: Rozelin Akgün

Dates: July 28 - 31, 2025

Time: 19:00 - 21:00

Biomaterials are emerging in today’s art and design fields not only as alternative materials but also as material carriers of ethical, ecological, and speculative thinking. With their living, transforming, and decaying structures, these materials shift the focus of production from object-centered action to a process-based, collaborative, and reciprocal research practice.

Producing with living organisms means caring for, co-evolving with, and engaging in a dialogue with the material. This approach treats biological processes such as fermentation, decay, and drying not only as technical elements but also as aesthetic and political tools. Thus, biomaterial transforms from a mere surface into a method, an ethical stance, and an intellectual position.

The workshop is designed as a temporary production space where material gains subjectivity and the biological and cultural intertwine. Together with the participants, we will explore the possibilities opened up by material-centered thinking and experiment with new forms of relationships with nature through visual, spatial, and textual production.

In the midst of ecological collapse, technological transformation, and the quest for sustainability, biomaterial becomes not just a tool for expressing the future, but also a multilayered medium that speaks to the present and the past. Within this framework, we will explore how art can engage with both a living material and a living world.

Rozelin Akgün is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher based in Diyarbakır. Her practice, shaped by her background in landscape architecture, explores the relationship between nature and humans through biological cycles, ecological transformations, and local production methods. By working with biomaterials, she emphasizes the temporary and cyclical nature of natural processes, creating sensory experiences where the boundaries between body and environment blur.

Rather than permanence, her art embraces nature’s constantly changing structure as a form of collaboration. Through installations composed of living, decaying surfaces, she explores the material and conceptual dimensions of our contact with nature. Her work offers a space for critical inquiry into ecological and social transformations and weaves together local knowledge, cultural memory, and biological processes to develop a multilayered narrative around the concepts of life, production, and care.

* This workshop is intended for participants who are currently working with biomaterials in their creative practice or who aim to embark on a research and production journey in this field. Regular attendance throughout the four-day program is expected. Participation is free of charge and limited to 15 people.

* To apply, fill out the preliminary registration form via the “Register” button on the event page. Registrations will open one week before the first event (on July 21, 2025, at 19:00), and the "Register" button will become active at that time. In the registration form, you are expected to write a message (minimum 50 words) including your production practices, your relationship with materials, and your motivation for attending the workshop. Applications will be reviewed to ensure a balanced participant profile, and invitations will be sent by email to selected participants.

Workshop Program

- Monday, July 28, 2025 / 19:00 - 21:00 / On Production and Material (Online)

The artist will share her production practices and material discovery processes. We’ll discuss experiences and processes, looking at how biomaterial is approached and expressed in her work from a personal perspective.

- Tuesday, July 29, 2025 / 19:00 - 21:00 / Concepts and Production Process for Participants (Online)

After learning about the materials participants are interested in, we’ll have a session with short presentations to discuss their goals for the workshop and the relationships they intend to form with earth-based materials.

- Wednesday, July 30, 2025 / 19:00 - 21:00 / Possibilities of the Material (Online)

We’ll explore how artists from different disciplines use materials in innovative and sustainable ways and examine where biomaterial stands as an artistic and political expression through various approaches and examples.

- Thursday, July 31, 2025 / 19:00 - 21:00 / On Exhibition Practices (Online)

In this final session, we will come together to discuss exhibition and presentation techniques for the works or research ideas participants have developed in relation to biomaterials, concluding the workshop.