Material: Improvisation

Contemporary Art and Ecological Experiments (Production Workshop for Artists)

“Material: Improvisation”

Facilitator: Gülce Tulçalı

Date: January 19 - 22, 2026

Time: 19:00 - 21:00

This workshop places improvisation and collaboration at the core of image-making and speculative world-building as ways to rethink the relationship between feminism and nature. Working with video, photography, and performance, participants engage in intuitive, experimental, and collective processes in which images are produced through shared, responsive, and relational practices. Within these processes, improvisation and collaboration function both as artistic methods and as political positions. Together, participants reflect on and create alternative worlds where ecological dynamics intersect with women-centered narratives.

Throughout the workshop, image-making unfolds as a reciprocal, improvisational, and collaborative relationship with nature. Nature is approached not as a passive backdrop, but as an active agent that responds, intervenes, and reshapes collective acts of creation. From a feminist perspective, the entanglements of body, ecology, and power are explored together; themes such as surveillance, patriarchy, care, resilience, and survival emerge through collaborative image-making, improvised actions, and performative gestures.

Emphasising process over outcome, the workshop offers a space that embraces uncertainty, vulnerability, and not-knowing. Through improvisation, collective experimentation, and shared authorship, image, ritual, and narrative remain open and in flux. Participants are invited to explore new forms of expression and resistance—both personal and political—by collaboratively imagining, testing, and inhabiting alternative worlds.

Gülce Tulçalı (b.1994) was born in Izmir, Turkey and is now a London-based visual artist whose practice includes moving image, photography and performance. She uses fictional rituals and acts integrated into real narratives, navigating women and the system, merging these worlds. She creates images of a world under extreme patriarchy/authority and re-imagines women-centred coping mechanisms against or through the system and its different apparatuses; whether its intersection with nature, immigration, social media, or surveillance capitalism. Using various methods from digital processes to darkroom prints, her manipulation of the image in still and moving expands into a performative cinematic practice.

She had her BA diploma in International Management, Economics & Finance from Bocconi University, and she completed her MA Photography degree at the Royal College of Arts. Her work is in various collections such as the RCA Diaspora Collection, the British Film Network archives and private collections. Her work has been screened nationally and internationally such as the Chester Film Festival, Gallery Weekend Berlin and Contemporary Art Ruhr. Her commissions for Ai-Da Robot were exhibited in the Design Museum in the exhibition “Portrait of a Robot” and La Biennale Venice 2023. She had her first UK solo show: “Rituals for the WorldsEnd” in February 2024 in FourCorners

E2. She received SW Darkroom RCA Residency Award and DYCP Grant from Arts Council England. She held workshops at venues like Goethe Institute London and Sirkhane Darkroom & recently was an artist- in -residence in RCA x CCA 2025 degree show and in JOYA AIR.

* This workshop is designed for participants who work with or aim to engage in video, photography, and performance practices with an interest in ecology and feminism. Regular attendance is expected throughout the program. Participation is free of charge and limited to 15 participants.

* To apply for the program, please complete the pre-registration form via the “Register” button on the page. Registration will open one week before the first session (January 12, 2026, 19:00), and the “Register” button will become accessible on that date. During pre-registration, applicants are expected to submit a minimum 40-word statement outlining their artistic practice, their relationship to collective production, and their motivation for joining the workshop. Applications will be reviewed, and selected participants will receive invitations via email.

Workshop Schedule

- Monday, January 19, 2026 / 19:00 - 21:00 / On Production and Material (Online)

In the opening session, Gülce Tulçalı introduces her artistic practice, focusing on improvisation and collaboration as both a method and a way of thinking within image-making. Through examples from video, photography, and performance, speculative world-building approaches are discussed, opening up reflections on feminism, ecology, and collective production. This session establishes the conceptual and intuitive framework of the workshop.

- Tuesday, January 20, 2026 / 19:00 - 21:00 / Concepts and Production Process for Participants (Online)

In this session, participants share their artistic practices, relationships with image-making, and thematic interests through short presentations. From a feminist perspective, the entanglements of body, nature, and power are explored through collective discussion and feedback. The session supports participants in clarifying their narrative and production directions throughout the workshop.

- Wednesday, January 21, 2026 / 19:00 - 21:00 / Potentials of the Material (Online)

This session focuses on how images can be transformed through ritual, performative actions, and intuitive processes. Improvisation, uncertainty, and experimentation are approached as core tools of artistic production. Participants collectively reflect on how collaboration and shared actions can be integrated into their own practices.

- Thursday, January 22, 2026 / 19:00 - 21:00 / On Exhibition Practices (Online)

In the final session, ideas, images, and experiences developed throughout the workshop are collectively reviewed. The group reflects on ways of sharing, presenting, and rethinking collective processes in different contexts. Participants conclude the program through shared reflection and discussion.