Xurban collective (stylized as xurban_collective, 2000–2012) was an international art collective founded in 2000. Core members of the group are Guven Incirlioglu and Hakan Topal, whose transatlantic collaborations took the form of media projects and installations. The collective remained active until 2012 and gained recognition for its critical, research-driven projects,Cameron, Dan. Poetic Justice: The 8th International Istanbul Biennial. Istanbul: Istanbul Art and Culture Foundation, 2003.Biesenbach, Klaus. Greater New York. New York: PS1 / MoMA, 2005. which explored geopolitical conflict,Ronte, Dieter, eds. Under the Sign of the City: Contemporary Art from Turkey. Bonn: Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2001. militarism, ecology, extraction, displacement, and urban transformation. Mermoz, Gerard. Time Lines: Reading the City of Signs. Istanbul: Aksanat Center, 2004.Altindere, Haili., Evren S, eds. User's Manual / Contemporary Art in Turkey: 1986-2006. Istanbul: Revolver Books, 2007. Elliot, David. Time Present, Time Past: Highlights from 20 Years of the Istanbul Biennial. Istanbul Modern, 2007.Eche, Charles and Vasif Kortun. 9th International Istanbul Biennial. Istanbul Art and Culture Foundation, 2005. Topal, Hakan and Incirlioglu, Guven. "The-Sea-Image: Visual Manifestations of Port Cities and Global Waters". New York: Newgray, 2011 Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East, Edited by Anthony Downey, Ibraaz Publishing and I.B. Tauris, 2014 Their interdisciplinary practice integrated media such as video, photography, cartography, Mortenbock, Peter. and Helge Moonshammer. Networked Cultures: Parallel Architectures and the Politics of Space. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2008. and digital platforms,Conover, Roger. Call Me Istanbul. Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2004. often grounded in methods from sociology, political science, archeology and architecture.ACMA. Biennale Del Paesaggio Mediterraneo. Milan: ACMA Centro Di Archittettura, 2008. Performance histories By Bonnie Marranca, PAJ Publications, 2008 Erdemci, Fulya, ed. Modern and Beyond. Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2007. Akay, Ali. 60 years 60 Artists. Istanbul: Eczacibasi, 2002.
Members Guven Incirligioglu (1960) studied architecture, photography, and art theory (Ph.D.) and has exhibited since the 1980s in group shows and has held one-person exhibitions in New York, Ankara, Istanbul, Sarajevo, Sofia, and other locations, working primarily with photography, photo-mechanical materials, and new media. He was a lecturer in art and design in various schools in Turkey, including Bilkent University, Ankara, and Istanbul Bilgi University and Economy University's Faculty of Art and Design in Izmir.
Hakan Topal is an artist and scholar living and working in New York City. He is a full professor of New Media and Art+Design at SUNY's Purchase Collegehttps://www.purchase.edu/live/profiles/475-hakan-topal.
Over the last decade, xurban_collective collaborated with numerous other cultural producers, including Ali Demirel, Mehmet Ali Üzelgün, Atif Akın, Elif Akşit, Akın Gülseren, Jillian McDonald, Bülent Öztürk, and Mahir Yıldırım.
Exhibitions xurban_collective exhibited internationally including projects in institutions such as the 49th Venice Biennial (2001), 49th International Venice Biennial: Plateau of Humankind. Venice: Venice Biennail, 2001. the 8th International Istanbul Biennial (2003), PS1/MoMA (2005), Apexart (2004),The Future of the Reciprocal Readymade (The use-value of art) Exitart (2005) and ZKM – Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2004). xurban_collective participated in the "Political/Minimal" show curated by Klaus Biesenbach (MoMA, New York).Gritz, Anna. “Political/Minimal”, Frieze Magazine (January 2009) xurban_collective is exbitited at TBA21-Vienna (2010), https://tba21.org/tactics-of-invisibility The National Contemporary Art Museum, Athens (2010) and Arter-Istanbul (2011) and participated in ROUNDTABLE: The 9th Gwangju Biennale, which took place September 7 – November 11, 2012 in Gwangju, Korea.
References
External links xurban_collective's archived website Hakan Topal's website Guven Incirlioglu's website xurban_collective's position paper "On Collectivity" (July 2009)