BURÇAK BINGÖL

Early Years and Background

Born in Görele and raised in Ankara in Turkey, Bingöl undertook music studies at Ankara State Conservatory before earning a PhD in Ceramics at Hacettepe University, Ankara. She later deepened her practice in photography at The New School, New York, and photography remains integral to her multi-disciplinary oeuvre. After her academic training, Bingöl devoted herself to rethinking the Ottoman ceramic heritage, frequently drawing inspiration from everyday experience, collective memory, and material culture in Turkey and beyond. She currently lives and works in Istanbul.

Burçak Bingöl Artworks

Burçak Bingöl’s practice embraces psychological landscapes that hover between abstraction and representation, drawing from motifs of decoration and the dynamics of cultural transmission. Her seminal ‘Broken’ series (2013–ongoing) reconfigures destruction into transformation, exemplified by Broken II (2013, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)—a panel of reassembled ceramics decorated with floral patterns, speaking to both the Islamic and Ottoman traditions and contemporary questions of repair. In her project ‘Unforeseen Resistance’ (2015), Bingöl draws on the political events of Gezi Park, modelling ceramic vases that suggest both resilience and fragility.

Bingöl’s approach continually returns to acts of tracing, copying, and re-forming, producing new configurations through persistent labour. In Brick’s Reverie (2022), she uses debris from Istanbul’s Bomonti Brewery, binding local history and collective memory into sculptural works.

Select Commissions, Projects and Accolades

• In 2025, Burçak Bingöl’s artworks was included in Frieze Sculpture 2025 in London with Unit Terrenum Rosa, a site-specific sculpture created from the clay-rich soil of Regent’s Park, reflecting her ongoing exploration of material, memory, and transformation. Her work was a response to the curatorial theme ‘In the Shadows’, which foregrounds the unseen and the generative potential within overlooked spaces and histories.
• Lady Dior Art Project (2018), Dior: invited as one of eleven women artists to reinterpret the Lady Dior bag
• Curatorial projects for Goethe Institute, Ankara, and Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul
• Participation in international residencies: Porthmeor Studios, Cornwall; IASPIS, Stockholm; Cité des Arts, Paris; Hunter College, New York; Gate 27, Ayvalık
• Officine Saffi Award finalist (2024)

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Burçak Bingöl Exhibitions

Burçak Bingöl has presented solo exhibitions in major institutions and taken part in high-profile group exhibitions across Europe, Turkey, and the US.

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Minor Vibrations on Earth, Tate St Ives, UK (2022)
• Jardin Particulier, French Palace, Istanbul, Turkey (2017)
• Mythos and Utopia, Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul (2017)
• Solo Presentation, Volta NY, New York, USA (2015)
• Solo Presentation, Art Basel, Hong Kong (2014)
• A Carriage Affair, Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul (2014)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Dialogues: Modern Artists and the Ottoman Past, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• TEN, Baksı Museum, Bayburt, Turkey (2015)
• a good neighbour, 15th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2017)
• a good neighbour—on the move, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2017)
• Unleashing, Columbia University Teachers College, New York (2018)
• That Pause of Space, Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul (2024)

Burçak Bingöl FAQs

Ocula | 2025