Working on the performative, visual, and printed counterparts of writings, Zeynep Yılmaz’s gaze focuses on the potential of everyday things to take on leading roles. Her relationship to text and poetry revolves around the auditory, contextual, and semantic uses of language.
In approaching writing as an act — a tool to process that which already exists, she is interested in presenting it with possible interventions that may occur in the moment of action. Her practice is an attempt at capturing the feelings that have occurred at a given time and space, by means of creating the appropriate conditions for them to reoccur and be re-presented. Exploring the act of dismantling and reconstructing hierarchies within comparative thought structures built across different contexts, her work is concerned with thinning the boundaries between the performative and the ordinary. Hovering at the intersections of autobiographical narrative, fiction, irony, and realism, Zeynep Yılmaz transforms her process into texts, performances, publications, site-specific installations, sound and video works. 


Zeynep Yılmaz, yazının performatif, görsel ve basılı karşılıkları üzerine çalışır. Bakışı, gündelik şeylerin başrol üstlenme potansiyeline odaklanır. Metin ve şiirle kurduğu ilişki, dilin işitsel, bağlamsal ve anlamsal kullanımları etrafında şekillenir. Yazıyı bir eylem olarak ele alır ve halihazırda var olanı işlerken, eylem anında ortaya çıkabilecek müdahalelerle birlikte sunmakla ilgilenir. Pratiği, bulunduğu zaman ve mekâna dair hisleri yakalayıp bunların yeniden temsil edilebilmesi için uygun koşullar yaratma çabasıdır. Üretimi, farklı bağlamlarda kurulan karşılaştırmalı düşünce yapılarını parçalama ve yeniden kurgulama arayışını içerir. Performatif olanla sıradan olan arasındaki sınırların incelmesi üzerine yoğunlaşır. Otobiyografik anlatı, kurgu, ironi ve gerçekçiliğin kesişimlerinde gezinen sürecini metinlere, performanslara, yayınlara, mekâna özgü yerleştirmelere, ses ve video işlerine dönüşür.




zeeynepyilmazz@gmail.com
@zeeynepyilmaz
soundcloud
Vimeo
Substack


2024 8th term resident, SAHA Studio, İstanbul, TR

2019-2021 BA Leiden University Arts, Media and Society
& Minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies


solo

2024 COPYWRITER, 5533, İstanbul, TR
2024 durun anlatayım, 400x118, İstanbul, TR
2022 Decent writers don’t feed the narrative, Snacks Amsterdam, NL
2022 Devir-Teslim, De Perzen carpet store, The Hague, NL


group shows & performance programs

2025 Listening Biennial, avto, İstanbul, TR
2025 Mountain as a Living Archive, PAKT Foundation, Amsterdam, NL
2025 Family Reimagined (Rotterdam x İstanbul: reimagining family year through art),
Saye Kolektif, İstanbul, TR
2025 Portiko Okumaları ve Performansları, Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat, İstanbul, TR
2025 Network Nihilism: Soft Infrastructures, Pasaj @ Barın Han, İstanbul, TR
2025 The Echo Chamber, Deptford Town Hall, London, UK
2024 Urban Acoustic Speculations, arthereistanbul & Aberdeen University, İstanbul, TR
2023 Chills & Quills, Büyük Valide Han, İstanbul, TR
2023 inanınca göreceğim, Büyükada, İstanbul, TR
2023 aspace isa space is a space, Lab23 The Hague, NL
2023 Tip of The Tongue, Garage Gallery Prague, CZ
2022 Flipchart at Instrument Inventors, iii, The Hague, NL
2022 Filling the Void with The Spectrum Space, The Grey Space in the Middle, NL


publications

2025 veya tutkal, full-lenght poetry book, 1000 copies, designed and printed independently in collaboration with zaten stüdyo in İstanbul 
2024 bir olay-oluşum için metin / text for a happening, self-published, 50 editions, with the support of and presented during SAHA Studio
2022 Politiks Kills Poetry, in collaboration with Babi Badalov, commissioned by Les Conseils Superflus, 100 editions, designed and printed in Amsterdam, presented in Billytown
2022 decent writers don’t feed the narrative, self-published, 15 editions, presented in Snacks Amsterdam


exhibition texts for

2023 bir an için, gerisin geri / for a moment, re-turning back (Gülnihal Yıldız), Kairos Gallery, İstanbul, TR
2023 As long as I remember, as fast as I remember, as strong as I remember, (Ferdinand Waas), West Den Haag, NL / Art Weekend Zurich, CH
2023 Plug’n Play (Onur Tayranoğlu), MUU Contemporary Art Center, Helsinki, FL
2022 Metallic Taste of Patience (Ester Gasparova), Royal Academy of Art The Hague, NL
2021 UA006050455LV_ (Ferdinand Waas & Tim Rosenbaum), KHiO White Box Gallery, Oslo, NO


press

artfulliving.com
ofluxo.net
saliva.live
artdogistanbul.com
plumemag.com
sanatokur.com
parool.nl