About me
I grew up in a context where art is treated as a luxury rather than a necessity. It comes from a strong cultural lineage, yet sociopolitical conditions have caused that lineage to wither, leaving behind something plastic. In Türkiye, theatre audiences often fall into three groups: those who consume familiar stories to escape their own lives, those who treat theatre as elitist because they do not understand it, and a third group—nearly absent—that refuses passivity and demands transformation rather than comfort. The absence of this third audience shaped my work.
I am driven to reconfigure spectatorship itself and put my own vision on the stage. For example, while directing Poetry Night: The Wall, I mapped voice frequency data from a monologue to color using artificial intelligence and worked with the lighting team to realize it live. I am applying to Tulane because Tulane understands theatre as a living, public, and collaborative practice. It will allow me to combine computer science with theatre to bring my work to the stage. Just as importantly, New Orleans offers a cultural ecosystem where music, ritual, improvisation, and community are inseparable from performance. This will allow me to work with various types of audiences. Since I could find my intended audience there, I feel like all my work could somewhat find its address. It would not be like letters addressed to fire.