Right after "Angelus Altera", with Ra, MK and Ali Emir. SALT Beyoğlu, Istanbul. As part of "90s on stage" exhibition, curated by Amira Arzık. 2022. Photo by Berkay Ali Bilge
Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu (Berlin & Istanbul) is a multidisciplinary artist specialising in long-durational live performances, complemented by video, installation/sculpture, and public intervention works. With a focus on chronopolitics and necropolitics, Leman’s work centres on the vulnerability and resilience of marginalised, especially queer, bodies. They are interested in queer re-appropriation methodologies from a Southwest Asian perspective within a deal with violence and privilege dynamics, referring to the past and current hegemonies, totalitarian regimes, and dictatorships in some parts of the world, and rising fascism and conservatism all over.
Viewing the body as a repository of fears, traumas, and emotions, Leman pushes the boundaries of the physical and emotional body in their performances. Through performances that blur the line between vulnerability and resilience, they interrogate how cis-heteropatriarchy and colonial necro-capitalism render certain bodies vulnerable and explore the to-be-emerged potential and strength of the body. Leman’s corporeal methodologies, ranging from body intervention methods, long-durational performance practice, re-interpretation of tableau vivant technique, rituals and impossible movement scores, adapt to the demands of each work.
Leman holds a master’s degree in “Live art forms” from the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg, under Prof. Johannes Paul Rather and Tamara Antonijevic, with distinction, and received the DAAD Prize 2024 with their graduation project.
Leman showed their works at Pickle Bar, Berlin; Door Foundation, Amsterdam; Ornamenta24, Pforzheim; SANATORIUM, Istanbul; Bärenzwinger, Berlin; ICA, London; Flora Chang, Los Angeles; Goethe Institute, Rome; Zentrum Kultury Zamek, Poznan; SALT Beyoğlu, Istanbul; Tropez, Berlin; STAMP Festival – altonale, Hamburg; Ornemanta24, Stadt Museum, Pforzheim; Schwules Museum, Berlin; Kunsthalle St Annen, Lübeck; Galerie Wedding, Berlin; ZK/U, Berlin, Venice International Performance Art Week, Venice; Kunstraum, London; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; 18. Asia Biennale Bangladesh, Dhaka; Warehouse9 International Performance Art Festival, Copenhagen, and Jeonbuk Museum of Arts, Jeonju, among others. They were selected for the artist residency programmes at: Door Foundation, Amsterdam, 2024, Guest Artist in CAMP -Notes on Art education, as part of documentafifteen Kassel 2023; Artist-In-Residence Scholarship Istanbul-Berlin, organised by Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst – nGbK, ZK/U and DEPO Istanbul, [Berlin 2020]; Venice International Performance Art Week, [2020, 2019 and 2017], Forum Dança, Lisbon [2018], Warehouse9, Copenhagen [2018]. They received numerous grants and awards such as: the Gwaetler Grant 2025, Gwaertler Stiftung, CH; DAAD Prize 2024 in AdBK, Nuremberg by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst — DAAD; Selected for the LfA Kunstkalendar 2024 by Förderbank Bayern, Project funding by SAHA Association 2023; Research Stipend by NEUSTART Kultur – Fonds Darstellende Künste 2022; Project funding by Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media and SAHA Association 2021; Project funding by Kulturfunke Lübeck 2021; Research stipend by Berlin Senate of Culture and Europe 2021; Artist-In-Residence Scholarship by Berlin Senate of Culture and Europe July–December 2020; Faruk Sade Grant by Siyah Beyaz Gallery 2019; STEP Travel Grant 2018; Several private grants from art collectors.
Leman’s work has been featured in books and publications by, amongst others, Emergency Index VOL 10/+, Ugly Duckling, “Post/pandemic life: A new theory of fragility” [Original title in German: Post/pandemisches Leben: Eine neue Theorie der Fragilität] by Yener Bayramoğlu and María do Mar Castro Varela, Transcript publishing house, the Texte zur Kunst; alongside magazines and journals such as Q+, Kaos GL, the Protodispatch, Protocinema. Leman taught at the UdK Berlin, in the “Art in Context” master program as a guest lecturer during the 2022-2023 winter semester and gave external mentorship for Performance Art class students at Bilgi University, Istanbul, from 2020 to 2024.
Since 2016, Leman has guided several body, movement, performance, and long-durational performance workshops in Turkey and Europe. They see the workshop processes as collective sharing and holding space for each other and are interested in building safer spaces where especially queer, BIPOCs, and people from marginalised communities can connect with their bodies and take action to turn their vulnerabilities into their strengths through performance art.
Leman was a member of the Istanbul Queer Art Collective between 2014 – 2017 and performed in the following art events and venues as part of the collective: SALT Beyoğlu; Istanbul; Zurcher Theater Spektakel, Zurich; II. Sound Acts Festival, Athens, Les Belles de Nuit Festival, Photobastei, Zurich; Pornceptual, Prince Charles, Berlin.
Between 2012 and 2019, Leman was part of the advisory team that they built as five FLINTAs for Turkey’s first queer theory series titled “Queer Düş’ün” [Queer Fantasy /Thought] and was the translator of several queer books/texts in the selection, in Sel Publishing House. They also edited and compiled a queer theory book called “Queer Temaşa” [Queer Contemplation /Spectacle], which was published as part of the series, in Sel Publishing House (2016).
For collaborations and other things, please send an email.
With love and roses,
leman