DIRECTORY 2026

Safigül Kurtyiğit | Photography, Painting

Safigül Kurtyiğit (b. 1978) is a visual artist based in Ankara, Turkey. She graduated from the Department of Painting at Gazi University as valedictorian of her department and second in her faculty, and completed her MFA in Sculpture at Hacettepe University. In her artistic practice, she approaches the city as a multi-layered field of memory shaped by historical, social, political, and ecological processes.

Working through a research-based approach, Kurtyiğit examines transformed, erased, or invisibilized urban spaces to question the impacts of war, forced displacement, and violence, particularly on children and collective memory.

Through sculpture, installation, drawing, photography, and digital production, she combines field documentation, found materials, architectural remnants, and 3D modelling to trace fragile narratives embedded in space. She positions her work as a form of witnessing against spatial erasure, aiming to create a critical ground for reflection on environmental loss, spatial violence, and urban memory.

@safigul078