Şeyda Özdamar

Born in Sivas in 1983, Şeyda Özdamar graduated from the Textile and Fashion Design Department of Cumhuriyet University in 2003. She continued her education in the Sculpture Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Erciyes University. The artist currently lives and works in Istanbul.

At the centre of Özdamar’s artistic practice are themes of education, authority, freedom, individual rights and collective memory. She researches and brings together found and archival photographs from different periods, depicting families, soldiers, children, women and political events. Through spontaneous and experimental interventions, she transforms these images into new visual narratives, questioning the original context of the photographs and the stories they carry.

Working across photography, collage, watercolor, wash, acrylic and stitching, Özdamar combines different techniques to create a dialogue between personal memory and collective history. Her interventions often alter, conceal, erase or reconstruct elements within the original photographs, transforming archival images from passive records of the past into active spaces of questioning and reinterpretation.

For Özdamar, photography functions not only as a document of the past but also as an archive carrying traces of social values, power relations and individual experiences. Through this archive, she addresses subjects such as war, gender inequality, child abuse, human rights, racism and discrimination, drawing attention to aspects of society that are often overlooked, suppressed or forgotten.

Her practice can be understood as an experimental and archival expression of memory caught between transformation, forgetting and remembering. By reinterpreting images inherited from the past, Özdamar invites the viewer to reflect on both personal memory and the broader narratives that shape collective history.

Selected Exhibitions

Şeyda Özdamar has participated in numerous group exhibitions at galleries, cultural institutions and art fairs in Turkey.

2024 — En Route, Group Exhibition, Inspera Bodrum Culture and Art, Muğla
2019 — ALL IN ONE ’01, Group Exhibition, GaleriBu Pavilion, Istanbul
2019 — STEP Istanbul, Tomtom Kırmızı – G-Art Gallery, Istanbul
2019 — STEP Istanbul, Tomtom Kırmızı – Büyükdere35 Pop-Up, Istanbul
2019 — Ayn-ı Galip (Galip Project), Group Exhibition, Pasajist, Istanbul
2019 — Sanatçıdan Sanatçıya, Group Exhibition, Büyükdere35, Istanbul
2018 — Dinamo III, Büyük Efes Sanat, Izmir
2018 — Hikâye Anlatıcısı, TÜYAP, Istanbul
2017 — Location, Cep Gallery, Istanbul
2017 — Taktiksel Duruş, CerModern, Ankara
2017 — Demans, GaleriBu, Istanbul
2017 — Sınırsız Sınıfsız, TÜYAP, Istanbul
2016 — Special Politic, GaleriBu, Istanbul
2016 — Umulmadık Topraklar, TÜYAP, Istanbul