We had the good fortune of connecting with Esra Özkan and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Esra, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Taking risks is at the heart of my career. I don’t think anything can happen without taking risks, but I also have to say that I’m taking risks just for the sake of what I believe in. If I really believe in the projects I’m going to do, I imagine, take risks, and make them real. There are things that I can’t do, but they also contribute experience and knowledge to me in a good way. I like to take risks, I can suddenly break the rudder of a ship where I’ve never been, and I can embark on a new adventure. Every new adventure I experience something new. These risks I take, my experience connects me more to the curatorial work I love.
Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Esra Ozkan’s curatorial practice focuses on the raw material to highlight cognitive experiences created by interdisciplinary artists using emerging new technologies. She frequently collaborates with interdisciplinary artists/technologists who deal with the political and social problems caused by emerging technologies. Esra Ozkan’s curatorial and academic writings bring philosophy together with the post-digital terminology and the effects of Post-human concepts in interdisciplinary arts. Esra Ozkan was the curator and director of the 2017-2019 bangprix program, which supported young artists under the age of 35 in data art, new media, bio art, and kinetic arts. bangprix is Turkey’s leading platform where art, design, technology and science come together. Between 2017-2019, more than fifty artists’ works were exhibited in 13 exhibitions. Esra Ozkan also curated the bangprix London exhibition in 2019, and presented the Design Thinking Project Insight Report: Global Mobility of Artist at Digital Art Field at Touch Designer Montreal during her time at the bangprix project.
Since 2019, Esra has been a curator at Contemporary Istanbul (CI) which is an international art fair in Istanbul. She has been the curator and director of the Plugin series at CI, which is a series of new media and digital arts exhibitions. Every year, Esra invites and hosts many international artists for the Plugin series. In 2019, The PlugIn exhibition received 74000 walk-in audiences within a week. The exhibition and its artworks have been reported in the International and local press, receiving over 10 million views on social media.
Since 2020, Esra Ozkan has been one of the founding members of the digital art market startup based in Turkey, named De Artium. The platform, which also includes foreign artists and more than 140 works, invites both local and international artists.
In the same year, Esra led large-scale installation projects as a co-curator. Istanbul The Lights Festival in 2020 exhibited 50 art installations by 54 artists in public spaces scattered around urban scenes of Istanbul, sponsored by the City of Istanbul.
I would say to believe and to continue to the end as an answer to this question. I don’t do any work I don’t believe in, if I don’t believe in my artist, or if the artist doesn’t believe in his work/art, I stay away. Sometimes the water drives me along different paths as I flow, and when I’m in the stream, I can suddenly find myself in the river or even in the ocean, but I don’t give up no matter what. My another important point is that I do not interrupt any work that I do, I continue to the end, regardless of the result. Another of the most important factors of my success is that I smile no matter what, I do not reduce my energy in the face of negative events, I believe that every problem can be solved. It is important to move forward knowing the existence of the stone without hitting the stone that comes your way or changing your path because of that Stone.
I’ve had a time in the past when no one knew or understood what I was doing as a job. My father supported me and believed in me. The fact that he believed in me made me stronger, inspired me, and I started moving forward. Frankly, I started with courage and taking steps. I put aside all my thoughts between doing and not doing, and took the first step. Initially, I was an assistant at a contemporary art gallery, then volunteered at museums, did an internship, and then opened an exhibition where I curated. After I developed myself in these areas, the movement in the combination of technology, science and art began to attract me, and I gave up contemporary art. Today, I am involved in international and local projects, curating, entrepreneurship, artistic director, manager. I continue to move forward with my courage, energy and curiosity just like the first day.
The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’ve had a time in the past when no one knew or understood what I was doing as a job. My father supported me and believed in me. The fact that he believed in me made me stronger, inspired me, and I started moving forward. Frankly, I started with courage and taking steps. I put aside all my thoughts between doing and not doing, and took the first step. Initially, I was an assistant at a contemporary art gallery, then volunteered at museums, did an internship, and then opened an exhibition where I curated. After I developed myself in these areas, the movement in the combination of technology, science and art began to attract me, and I gave up contemporary art. Today, I am involved in international and local projects, curating, entrepreneurship, artistic director, manager. I continue to move forward with my courage, energy and curiosity just like the first day.
Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges ‘ story of The Garden of Forking Paths has always impressed me. This story is set in a maze, and time is variable within that Maze. Imagine a maze that you can suddenly find yourself in the future and then find yourself in the past in an instant.
The garden that appears in the story and forking through the timeless future creates its own reality. This is an isolated labyrinth rather than being a physical labyrinth with walls of creation. But when we animate it in our minds, we deliver it into a physical space. We can put up its walls and place flowers in it. The labyrinth as we vivify in our minds reflects the labyrinth partly depicted by Borges as defining the concept of time without using the word “time” not building the walls.
This is how I depart and keep going on that way, too. Time continues and forks with all its problems for me, too. I figure it out the way I portray it in my mind and keep on my way.
Source: Shoutout LA
