Aslı Kıyak İngin
Studio grant holder in Stockholm 4 April – 31 May 2022
Aslı Kıyak İngin is an architect, designer, activist and educator based in Istanbul. She is running a critical design practice. She works in various fields such as design, craft, architecture, urbanism and art, with projects concerned with social, cultural and economic issues related to the city, against to the top down urban transformation and gentrification developments, and by advocating sustainable and participatory models for alternative visions. She has since 2006 initiated and developed the project and concept Made in Şişhane (www.madeinsishane.net), which aims for safeguarding the craft neighbourhoods in Istanbul. The project has since the beginning also highlighted and discussed the role of design in the urban development through various local and international events. Made in Sishane became the finalist of City to City Barcelona FAD Award 2016 Learning Initiatives in The City. She also worked on the development of participatory and sustainable practices in order to stop the demolishing process of Sulukule, an old Istanbul and Romani neighbourhood. She was the co-founder of the Sulukule Platform and organised the event 40 days 40 Nights Sulukule, which aimed at making this process visible and creating a dynamic platform to stop the state-led gentrification process (http://sulukulegunlugu.blogspot.com).
Photo: Aslı Kıyak İngin
During her IASPIS residency she will is researching and mapping craft practices, collectives and stories in Sweden. This mapping will take place as an effort to understand, relate and communicate through her own craft, neighborhood and design experiences, practices and knowledge in Istanbul and other geographies.
Aslı Kıyak İngin has a degree in architecture from the Mimar Sinan University and have a post-graduate diploma from Istanbul Technical University with the thesis Developing a method for the analysis of formal and spatial structure of traditional cities. She also attended the Design Culture and Management Certificated Program at the Istanbul Bilgi University. She has worked as a designer and design manager at Celik Dizayn Lighting Company which is located in Sishane between 1998 and 2008. She is active in the NGO field and she was vice-president of the Istanbul branch of the Industrial Designers Society of Turkey and president of the Human Settlement Association.
She is teaching part time at the Istanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Architecture, Industrial Design Department where she offered a design studio course Apprenticeship in Design that connect the students and craftspeople in the craft neighbourhoods in Istanbul since 2013. Her other studio course at the same university is about design for sustainability through working with the different localities. She was the workshop tutor at University of Thessaly, Post Industrial Design Master Program and has directed the studios about fishermen and food craft system in Volos, Greece. She was the academic coordinator of Masterpiece of Beyoglu Project which is lead a new model that the traditional and informal master-apprentice training system is attached to the formal education system with a contemporary way. She took part in the team who developed a design course with and for the craftspeople from more than 20 craft branches in ISMEK (Lifelong Learning Centre of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality) and she worked as a mentor to lead them develop innovative craft products. She took place with the project Crafting Neighborhood in the first Istanbul Design Biennial, Adhocracy Exhibition, 2012 (https://craftingneighborhoods.wordpress.com/). She took part in the academy program of Second Istanbul Design Biennial with the project Informal Academy which leads a program around and between the craft neighbourhoods and design biennial, 2014; She took a part in the exhibition of Vitra Contemporary Architecture Series 3: Dreams to Realities: Projections on Education, 2014. She won mansion prize with the project Craft Based Regeneration Model: Jewellery Quartier with an interdisciplinary group from designers, academicians, craftspeople and NGO’s for the competition Future Istanbul: Alternative Proposals for the Future of Istanbul, 2012; She is the jury member of Actors of Urban Change Project Competition, Robert Bosch Foundation, Berlin, 2013-2014. Her some other practice and projects are More than Design, FoodCraft Gaziantep, Open Source: Persembe Bazaar, Objects of Şişhane, stüdyoSUSTAIN. Her publications include Istanbul Para-Doxa, Made in Şişhane Book on Istanbul, small scale production and design, Istanbul; Mustesna Kentin İstisna Hali, Handmade Urbanism, Mapping The Invisible EU- Roma Gypsies.
morethandesignist.wordpress.com
@studiosustain
@objectsofsishane