About

Beyza Dilem Topdal (1991, İstanbul) is an artist and a researcher whose practice is rooted in an interdisciplinary interrogation of bodies, technologies, and materialities. Holding a BFA in industrial product design from Yeditepe University, she completed her MFA in Design and Technology at Parsons, The New School (2017). She draws on critical theories of cyborg, technoscience, multispecies assemblages and new materialisms to and generate new forms of kinship by following the natureculture encounters. Her practice deconstructs and reconstructs local narratives, focusing on other-than-humans and speculative fiction, using various creative technologies in a research-based approach. Previously, she extensively investigated human and more-than-human marine entanglements of Bosphorus through critical design, speculative storytelling and ethnographic methods. She is now expanding these inquiries into posthuman futures and uncanny forms of life. She applied different tools and technologies such as video, artificial intelligence, found objects, printed materials, interactive media and creative coding to her installations. 

Group exhibitions she has participated include; Continuum, Galerie 24b, Paris (2017), A More Fruitful Way to Spend Free Time, Plateform, Paris (2017), Sonar Istanbul +D Gallery (2020), What Water Knows, Pilot Gallery, İstanbul (2022). She has been selected to participate in programs such as Istanbul Biennial Study and Research Program, Rotary Art Fund, Piksel O’art New Media residency program, Residency Unlimited, New York, Cité des Arts Paris.

EDUCATION
2017 MFA in Design and Technology, Parsons School of Design, The New School  (Paris & NYC Campuses) 
2014 BFA in Industrial Product Design, Yeditepe University, Istanbul Turkey 
2013 Erasmus at HOWEST, Kortrijk, Belgium 
2010 Lycée Saint Benoît, Istanbul

ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2025 Cité Internationale des Arts; Paris, France supported by French Ministry of Culture
2024 – Residency Unlimited ; New York, USA, full scholarship supported by Piksel. & OdeaBank
2023 – Daire Sanat Open Studio Residency
2022 – 2023 Piksel. New Media; Artist in Residence

ARTISTIC RESEARCH PROGRAMS
2021 Working and Research Program (ÇAP), Istanbul Biennial, IKSV, Funded by the EU Grant Scheme for Common Cultural Heritage.

AWARDS/GRANTS
2022 Istanbul Rotary Art Production Fund

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Hope(stalgic) materialities and wishful horizons, RU House, Governor’s Island New York (Curated by Eglé Ambrasaité)
2024 Upcycle Festival, Gazhane Museum, Kadıköy, İstanbul
024 Emerge 1.0, Alan Kadıköy, Istanbul (Curated by Hande Şekerciler)
2023 Soft Discipline, Alan Kadıköy, Istanbul (Curated by Ekmel Ertan)
2022 What Water Knows, Pilot Gallery, Istanbul
2020 Sonar Festival, Sonar +D Gallery, Istanbul
2019 Cyborg Encounters, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul (Co-curated with Burak Taşdizen & Ayşe Melis Okay, with the supervision of Dr. Melike Şahinol)
2019 M.I.I. Manifold , TTC, London (Curator: Esra Özkan)
2019 Sonar Festival, Sonar +D Hall, Istanbul (in collaboration with Wonjik Yang and Carlotta Aoun)
2017 A More Fruitful Way to Spend Free Time, Plateforme Galerie , Paris (In collaboration with Wonjik Yang and Carlotta Aoun, curated by Nicolas Maigret)
2017 Continuum, Galerie 24b, Paris (Parsons Paris, MFA+BFA Thesis Graduation Show)
2016 Major Major, Parsons The New School, New York

CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE
2024 The Void, Çubuklu Silolar (co-curators with Hande Şekerciler)
Artists; Barış Çavuşoğlu, Berkay Tuncay, Buşra Tunç, ha:ar ve Hakan Gündüz, Maotik ve Nik Colk Void, media.tribe ve Meggie Weinheimer

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Okay, A.M., Taşdizen, B., McKinnon Bell, C.J. et al. Cyborg Encounters: Three Art-Science Interactions. Nanoethics 16, 223–238 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-022-00423-0