Born in Sivas, Turkey in 1983, Şeyda Özdamar studied Textile and
Fashion Design at Sivas Cumhuriyet University. She continued her
studies in Kayseri at the Faculty of Fine Arts, focusing on sculpture.
Her work centres on the changes in educational systems, its
reflections on society, and bigotry brought about through the
medium of photography. Most importantly, she likes to put great
value on the enlightenment engendered by children. She believes
that analogue photography is the ideal tool for producing historical
documents which feed the collective consciousness. A photograph
is a sort of nostalgically confidential item. She has chosen to expose
the darkness in all sorts of organised social systems, defying
authority at large. War, inequality between men and women, child
abuse, human rights, racism, discrimination etc: Özdamar states
that she hunts the “emotions reflected in the found image” and
that she “erases almost everything else”. Intervening artistically on
an old photograph is a cathartic means to reconcile matters that
particularly bother her personally.
