Shambala Diaries - Old Women from Grahan Print

Diren is a backpacker interdisciplinary artist who follows the guidance of the journeys in their life and artworks, as being impressed by Beat Generation. During their travels, they invented an anti-elitist gallery concept in a guerilla way, its called “Art Space Project”. Since Diren started this Project in a village of Fethiye in 2016, more than 30 art spaces have been established. Diren takes these paintings to the next city in their backpack, sets up new street exhibitions and gets new drawings, Art Space Project is an interactive exhibition that works for the accessibility of art and grows constantly. Diren has also presented an Online Exhibition for everyone else. As being impressed by the process they had spent in Ancient Greek department at University of Istanbul in 2016, Diren left the school and hichhiked to the ancient cities and temples. Then they started to study Sculpture at Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts and Philosophy at the University of Istanbul as a second degree in 2017. Therefore “Paganism” and “reinterpreted ritual” concepts have been evident themes on Diren’s artworks. Because of the political situation, most of their artworks are also based on activism and disclosure practices. In 2018 they designed a project as a solution for disabled people whose can’t able to access to the cultural places and galleries, it’s called ”Non-Barrier Art Map“ which has been chosen 1.st Project of the “Art and Culture” category in HEG social responsibility project competition. In 2019, Diren’s Project ”Produce for Art“ which is based on developing reuned village schools by providing assistance and materials to fine art students whose can not afford their art ideas, has been chosen as the best in “Art and Culture” category again. Diren’s literary works are mostly related to “LGBTI+ History” and “Art” topics. In 2018, they translated “S.T.A.R”. (”Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries“, Sub Press) to Turkish. In 2019 they compiled the book “A Night of June: Biographical Analysis of the Stonewall Riots” (org: “Bir Haziran Gecesi: Stonewall Devriminin Biyografik Çözümlemesi” , Kaos Çocuk Parkı Publishing). In the same year Diren was selected for the artist in residency program conducted between the European Union and Turkey, called “Be Mobile, Create Together”. With the support of the Netherlands Consulate, Diren produced conceptual performing artworks and photo series at the Rast Theater in Amsterdam.