Please upgrade your browser

For the best experience, you should upgrade your browser. Visit our accessibility page to view a list of supported browsers along with links to download the latest version.

Show RCA 2019

Ceyda Oskay

Show RCA work

Major project:

Sleepdust: Uber Drivers Singing Lullabies

My work for the degree show is a collection of lullabies sung by male Uber drivers (and two black cab drivers). Through it, I explore ideas of migration and displacement, sleep, notions of place, gender roles in care taking and human conversation.

Info

  • I mostly use textiles in my artwork (as conceptual craft), and work across a variety of themes including migration, gender, ethnography, sleep and conflict, sleep and ritual, and various aspects of war, drawing on my background in humanitarian work. I often dislocate and repackage events, rework them and unravel them in new locations, with an attempt at creating a common understanding and empathy between people. I reassemble.

    I have also worked in clay, plaster, print, photography, video and sound media, and employ the most suitable techniques for my work.

    My interactive, participatory projects are more experimental and concern the social relations formed during the making, and afterwards, of the artwork.

    Some of my work also exists as undocumented daily intervention or as writing.

    Instagram: ceydaoskayart

  • Previous degrees

  • BA International Studies, University of Chicago, 2002; MA Middle East Studies, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 2010; Short courses, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2000–03; Short courses, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, 2011–13
  • Experiences

  • Artist volunteer, Grizedale Art Centre, Cumbria, 2018; Reporter and photojournalist, Arab Times English Daily Newspaper, Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2003; Figure drawing instructor, Imperial College London, 2018; Workshop instructor and artist in residence, The Print Room (Printmaking Studio), 2016–17; Costume designer, Taqa Productions, Kuwait, 2016–17; Workshop instructor, 'The Seventh Sense: Powering the Creative Economy', Nuqat, Kuwait, 2016; Workshop instructor and curator, SADI Programme, Sadu House, Kuwait, 2015–16; Part-time art and integration workshop facilitator, Caritas, Turkey, 2015; Owner, producer and designer, Stationary Movement, 2014–present; Curatorial assistant, South African National [Art] Gallery, 2001; Excavation, conservation and photography assistant, Archaeological Dig, Kerkenes Mountain, Turkey, 2000; Teaching assistant, Interlochen Center for the Arts, MI, USA, 1999; Art and conflict transformation workshop, Brandeis University, Boston, Cambridge, USA, 2012; Founder and co-leader, University of Chicago Art Club – Outside the Lines / Figure Drawing Club, 1999–2002; UNHCR Coordinator, UNHCR Focal Point, Ankara, Turkey, 2007; National Humanitarian Affairs Officer, UNOCHA, 2013–14; İstanbul program on-site administrator, University of Chicago: Study Abroad Office, 2013; Programme associate, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (EECARO), 2011–13; Coordination and executive associate, United Nations Development Fund (UNDP); Country Office in Turkey, 2010–11; Protection assistant, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); Kuwait for South Iraq, Kuwait City, 2007–10; Gender, local integration and repatriation assistant, UNHCR, Ankara, 2004–07; External relations and asylum status determination and protection internship, UNHCR, 2004; Students circus costume designer, 'Le Vorris and Vox!', University of Chicago, 2002
  • Exhibitions

  • 'Borderless', Migration Museum, London, 2019; 'Sawaber', Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait, 2019; 'CAPbaret: Evening of Performances', Royal College of Art, London, 2019; 'London Anti-Militarist Show', Red Door Project Space, London, 2019; 'Research as Art (R.A.W.)' Afterparty, Royal College of Art, London, 2019; 'Cooked and Raw', Independent’s Biennial Liverpool, Francis Ewe’s House and George Henry Lee Building, Liverpool, 2018; 'Five Years', Being Together is Not Enough, INK, inc & co; and project with the Organisation for Blind Africans and Caribbeans, London, 2018; 'States of Public', FACT Liverpool, Liverpool, 2018; The Office of Useful Art, Ink, Inc. and Salt, Pasajist, Istanbul, 2018; 'g l a z e exhibition', The Icing Room, London, 2017; 'Islands Exhibition', Hockney Gallery, London, 2017; 'Blue Dream' (Solo Show), Halka Art Project, Istanbul, 2017; Museum of Broken Relationships, Croatia, 2017; 'Messing with Yarn', Textile Arts Factory, Thessaloniki, 2016; 'Blar Klukkusbund (The Blue Hour)', Bilskur Gallery, Textilsetur Icelandic Textile Arts Center, Blonduos, 2016; Sadu Art and Design Initiative, Sadu House, Kuwait, 2016; 'Utilitarian Art', Armaggan, Istanbul, 2016; 'language/words', Halka Art Project, Istanbul, 2015; 'A Bag Conceals, A Bag Reveals', Textile Arts Factory, Thessaloniki, 2015; 'Out of Kuwait : Landscape Extended : Exhibition', Museum of Modern Art, Kuwait, 2012; '100% Cotton T-Shirt Exhibition', Glasgow School of Fine Arts / School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2004; 'Critical Mass Exhibition', Smart Museum of Art – University of Chicago, 2002; Festival of the Arts (FOTA) Coordination, University of Chicago; 'Dispensing with Formalities' (Temporary Services Collective), Columbus Ohio Project, 2002; 'Bench', Public Art Project, Chicago, 2002; 'Maps', Alliance Francais, Jabriya, Kuwait, 2017; 'Metamorphosis', The Printroom Club, Print Room Collective, Shuweikh, Kuwait, 2016; 'Surrealism', The Printroom Club, Print Room Collective, Shuweikh, Kuwait, 2017; 'Broken', Baked Café, Yukon, 2017
  • Conferences

  • 'Al-Sadu Weaving: Looking at the possibilities of tent dividers and cushions being maps, documents, and self-expression', Fashioning Inclusivity Symposium, London College of Fashion, June 2019; 'The Body in Hannah Hoch's work: The Body After World War II', Oxford University, March 2018; Panel discussion presenter, The Sadu House, Victoria & Albert Museum, Craft in the Middle East Conference, October 2018; 'Counting Our Losses', Istanbul Bilgi University, 2016; 'Counting Our Losses', Istanbul Bilgi University, 2017
  • Publications

  • Various articles, The Arab Times English Daily Newspaper, Kuwait, 2004; Two articles, Umut’a Dogru, 2004; Co-authored with Metin Corabatir, Ayvakti Magazine
  • Awards

  • Second Place, Villa Moda T-Shirt Competition, Kuwait, 2002; Richter Research Grant for Research in South Africa
Royal College of Art