Sila Yalazan is a Turkish Visual Artist based in İstanbul.
Sıla Yalazan is a visual artist whose practice explores the struggles of marginalized communities through a feminist lens. Her earlier works focused on immigrant children in Istanbul, using elements of street life and children’s theatre to highlight resilience amid gentrification.
Yalazan’s photography emphasizes the strength of women and children in the face of systemic injustice, capturing the transient nature of existence as a source of quiet resistance. In her more recent work, she turns the camera inward, creating intimate, staged self-portraits in enclosed spaces that reflect on solitude, identity, and emotional endurance.
She studied Print & Graphic Design in South Africa, Fashion Design at FIT in New York, and Visual Arts in Melbourne (2014), where she curated Paradise Lost and Typical Girls.
After returning to Istanbul, she founded her studio in Tarlabaşı and contributed to Growing Up in a Metropolis at Studio‑X (Columbia University). In 2018, she published her first photography book, Tarlabaşı Vs Gezi (Knowledge Editions, Australia), featured at MoMA’s New York Art Book Fair and the National Gallery of Victoria.
In 2019, Yalazan debuted her solo exhibition Forbidden Games at Kıraathane (Istanbul), drawing on Bauhaus and Russian Avant‑Garde aesthetics. This project was later selected for the 212 International Photography Festival in 2020.
In 2022, her digital image Komotini was included in Tate Modern’s Beyond Surrealism show.
In 2024, she presented Forbidden Games: From Tarlabaşı to Oxford Streets at Fusion Arts’ Window Galleries in Oxford (August–September), connecting Istanbul’s street communities with feminist urban narratives in the UK.
On May 29, 2024, her exhibition Flowers in Concrete was hosted at The Photobook Café in London. Curated by Gül Demirdağ, the show featured Yalazan’s punk‑inspired portraits of immigrant children in Tarlabaşı, images from the Gezi Park protests (2013), LGBTQ marches (2013–2015), and two handmade photographic books by Swedish artist Karl Larsson—spotlighting children’s resistance to state‑backed gentrification and highlighting feminist solidarity
https://www.instagram.com/silayalazan/
CV
EDUCATION
2009-2011
La Trobe Art Institue. Melbourne, Australia.
2007-2008
Melbourne School of Fashion. Melbourne, Australia.
2001-2005
Cape College. Cape Town, South Africa.
1995-1996
New York Fashion Institute of Technology. New York, US.