I’m pleased to announce that I am a recipient of a 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship.
https://www.nyfa.org/news/2026-nysca-nyfa-artist-fellowship-program-recipients-and-finalists-announced/
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The Death of the Art School
New in hyperallergic.com “The Death of the Art School” I write about corporatization, ‘administrification’, precarity, and repression in the post-Gaza context and why art schools matter as spaces where artistic and political imagination. https://hyperallergic.com/the-death-of-the-art-school/
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A Turkish Patriot’s Duty: On the Armenian Genocide
By Hakan Topal, April 24, 2026 What concerns me is not criticism of the West. That critique is necessary and I share it. Colonialism, slavery, racial violence, the ongoing targeting of Muslims in Europe and the United States — these…
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Vicious Infrastructure
I wrote about this in 2018. The argument was that, for Islamists, mosques, security dams, and military fortresses aren’t separate projects — they share one logic: domination. Read it here: “Vicious Infrastructure Security dams, military fortresses, and mosques in the…
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Secular. Universal. Intellectual.
Over the last 40+ years, we have been bombarded with clichés about Islam. Shit media intellectuals endlessly argue for a moderate version of Islam that would sit comfortably within so-called Western ideals. Beneath all this talk, there has been a…
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Forget Nonprofits and DOGE—What We Really Need Is DOPE (Department of Public Efficiency)
The dismantling of the social state wasn’t a conspiracy—it was a bipartisan project carried out in plain sight. For decades, under the banner of “public reform,” both Democrats and Republicans chipped away at public institutions. Austerity budgets gutted public services…
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On Toxic Masculinity: Evacuation Series
Ok, I’m biased, but xurban_collective’s research was a bit ahead of its time. 😉 We tackled issues most people ignored, dissecting the dynamics shaping our contemporary political world. In 2009, we launched the Evacuation Series to explore ad-hoc architectural spaces—masjids…
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25 Years in New York City: A mini Reflection
It has been 25 years. On January 15, 2000, I arrived in New York City and settled in Dumbo. Coming from Ankara, NYC was intoxicating—a place alive with artists, intellectuals, and even outlaws. Once I mastered the subway system, I…
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Deleuze on Wittgenstein
I’ve been thinking about AI, language models, tokens, and possibilities of new artistic utterances. This brought me back to Deleuze’s famous long-form conversation with Claire Parnet, “Gilles Deleuze from A to Z,” also published as a book. For Deleuze, much…
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Imagination and Commons
In this election cycle, what we needed was transformative imagination—new ideas to ignite the old and inspire the young. Instead, Democrats, as usual, turned away from bold visions and a true commitment to public welfare and peace, ceding ground to…
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