Paolo Colombo Paolo Colombo is an Italian artist and curator. Born in 1949 in Turin, Italy, Colombo currently lives and works in Athens, Greece, and served as Art Advisor at Istanbul Modern Museum between 2008 and 2023. In 2012, he curated the Mardin Biennial with the conceptual framework titled “Second Look.” He was also the curator of the Iraq Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Colombo served as curator of the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome from 2001 to 2007, and as director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva between 1989 and 2000. In 1999, he curated the 6th Istanbul Biennial. In 1977, he became the first European artist to open an exhibition at New York’s PS1. After a 25-year break, Colombo returned to producing his own artistic work around the same period he moved to Athens, Greece. “I took a pencil and my old watercolor box… and started as if not a day had passed. Throughout my life I have used only watercolor and paper because they are easy to carry and the technique does not allow corrections.” Fırat Arapoğlu Fırat Arapoğlu is an art historian, art critic, and curator with over 20 years of experience in the field of contemporary art. He lives in Istanbul and works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Common Courses at Altınbaş University. He has curated numerous exhibitions both in Turkey and abroad. His recent projects include Moonraker, solo exhibition by Anita Taylor (2024, Vision Art Platform, Istanbul); Bir Varış Bir Yokuş, a dual solo exhibition by Ahmet Rüstem & Hakan Sorar (2024, Vision Art Platform, Istanbul); Bir Rüya Açılır, solo exhibition by Aida Mahmudova (2024, Vision Art Platform, Istanbul); Multiple Perspectives, group exhibition (2022, YARAT, Baku, Azerbaijan); Other Urban Order(s), solo exhibition by Sophia Grancharova (2022, ICA, Sofia); Traces of Excavation, international travelling exhibition (2022, Istanbul, Dundee, Barcelona); the 6th International Istanbul Children and Youth Biennial (2022, Istanbul); The Future That Wasn’t Forgotten, solo exhibition by Krassimir Terziev (2019, Versus Art Projects, Istanbul). He co-curated the 3rd Çanakkale Biennial, as well as the 3rd and 4th International Mardin Biennials and the 1st Mediterranean Biennial. His critical writings have appeared in numerous Turkish and international art magazines, including Sanat Dünyamız, Genç Sanat, Art-Ist Modern & Actual, ICE, ARTAM, Art Unlimited, Eleştirel Kültür, RH+, Istanbul Art News, Artdog Istanbul, Varlık, and Flash Art. He has presented research on art and art education at national and international symposia, and has contributed chapters to various books. He has given talks and workshops at Istanbul Modern, Moda Sahnesi, Atölye Maçka, Narmanlı Sanat, the Nazım Hikmet Cultural Center, and Istanbul Bilgi University. He is a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics). Esra Aliçavuşoğlu Esra Aliçavuşoğlu is a faculty member at Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts. She graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Letters, Department of Art History, where she also completed her MA and PhD. In 2000, she attended courses in Curatorial Studies at the University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins. In 2016, with the support of a TÜBİTAK scholarship, she conducted research in New York on contemporary art museums. In 2022, again supported by TÜBİTAK, she conducted research as a visiting scholar at the Pratt Institute, Department of History of Art and Design in New York. Aliçavuşoğlu, a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics), has published numerous academic articles, critical essays, and artist monographs nationally and internationally. She co-edits the History of Art in Turkey series, published by Can Yayınları’ Tellekt imprint, together with Ayşe Köksal. The first book in the series, Museum, was published in 2023. She also co-edited Bauhaus: The Design of Modernity (2009) with Ali Artun. Mehmet Said Aydın Born in Kızıltepe, Mardin. He is a poet, writer, translator, and screenwriter. He lives in Istanbul. He studied Turkish language and literature and began an MA in Turkish literature at Bilkent University, which he later postponed. He has published four poetry books: Kusurlu Bahçe (awarded the Arkadaş Z. Özger First Book Special Prize) (160. Kilometre, 2011; Everest, 2018; also published in French as Le Jardin Manqué, trans. Sylvain Cavaillès, Kontr, 2017); Sokağın Zoru (160. Kilometre, 2014; Everest, 2018); Lokman Kasidesi (Everest, 2019), and Altını Ben Çizdim (Everest, 2025). His autobiographical narrative Dedemin Definesi (Edebi Şeyler, 2018) was published in three languages—Turkish, Kurdish, and Armenian. He has written two pocket books on rakı gastronomy. Together with Süleyman Sertkaya, he translated two books from Turkish to Kurdish. He has prepared radio programs on Kurdish literature and folk song sociology for Açık Radyo, served as an editor for Turkish literature at Everest Publishing, and contributed essays, stories, and articles to various publications. He is currently writing screenplays for television series. Evin Sevgi Baran Born in Mardin, Evin Sevgi Baran completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in sociology at Hacettepe University. Her MA thesis explored the relationship between cinema and collective memory using a qualitative research methodology. She currently works as a research assistant at Hacettepe University Faculty of Communication, where she is also pursuing her PhD. With a TÜBİTAK scholarship awarded for her doctoral research, she conducted an ethnographic field study in Germany during a one-year residency in 2023. She is currently in the writing phase of her dissertation. Baran also works as a language editor for Moment, the academic journal of Hacettepe University Faculty of Communication. Her academic interests include cultural studies, ethnicity studies, migration studies, everyday life studies, human rights, ethnography, memory, and oral history. Beyond academia, she is interested in documentary cinema and the arts. In 2010, she joined the FilmTurkey project and, as part of a collaborative team effort, co-created the documentary Benim Düşüm Sinema, which earned her a 15-day training program at the State University of New York at Fredonia. In 2013, she assisted Dr. Zerrin Özlem Biner in the project Living with Remnants: Politics, Materiality and Subjectivity in the Aftermath of Past Atrocities in Turkey, collecting visual materials during the Mardin fieldwork. In 2014, she participated in An Anthropological Film-Making workshop organized by the University of Cambridge, and in 2015, she took part in the exhibition Reverberations: Violence Across Time and Space held at the Galata Greek School in Istanbul. Between 2012 and 2015, she also worked at m1886 Art Gallery.