Murat Germen

Murat Germen is an artist, educator and archivist born in 1965 who uses photography as a means of expression/research, living and working in Istanbul and London. He went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a Fulbright scholar and received his master's degree in architecture with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Gold Medal. He teaches photography, art and new media at Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Germen, who has many printed/online publications on photography, architecture, planning, new media and art, has been invited to dozens of conferences on international platforms. The artist's oeuvre focuses on issues such as the effects of excessive urbanization and gentrification, property/dispossession, new forms/devices/methods of imperialism, participatory citizenship, urban rights, sustainability of local cultures, the destruction caused by humans in nature, climate change, global warming, water rights. Some of the concepts that are central to the artist's works are documentation as an act of evidence collection, personal memory/social memory conflicts, betrayals and dynamics between trusts. Representation, simulation, various interpretations of history, promises of objectivity, dominant networks are among the concepts I frequently question. Two monographic books were published, Skira (Italy) and MASA (Turkey). He contributed to over eighty solo/group exhibitions in countries such as Turkey, America, Italy, Germany, England, Mexico, Portugal, Uzbekistan, Greece, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Iran, India, Australia, France, Canada, Bahrain, Korea, Dubai, China, Sweden, Switzerland, Egypt. Numerous editions of the artist's different works were included in personal collections at home and abroad and in the collections of Istanbul Modern, Proje 4L Elgiz Contemporary Art Museum, Toruń Contemporary Arts Center (Poland), Benetton Foundation's Imago Mundi - Istanbul Codex, Yapı Kredi Culture and Arts, Odunpazarı Modern Museum, and Evliyagil Museum.