based in berlin
perspective
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movement and space making practices
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camera as an author and gaze
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dialogues and narratives of life
artistic statement
Yürekli is interested in film photography since her childhood and recently expanding her experiment towards digital photography, post production- manipulation, different printing tecniques, experiments and interpretation. She seeks interrelations and dialogues between object, material, light as well as body mentally, socially and physically.
For her, city and architecture are elements of photography in scale; while movement, light and double exposure are the main tools for visual procjection. Her perspective is production of photoghraphic image with academic and research based understanding and developing image as a ‘found’ object.
Selected Exhibitions & Projects
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2025 RISO Exhibition, Groningen / artist participation 'Nobodies' triology
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2024 Vallus Exhibition, Yer Community, Eskişehir / artist participation ‘Stranger’ triology (analog, double exposure photography series)
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2024 Intentions 2 Exhibition, Akbank Sanat, İstanbul / participation with curatorial project ‘In Absence’ (composed of ten artists’ works and Sena Başöz work is exhibited)
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2023 Ben Olan ve Olabilecekler Arasında Bir Köprüyüm. Ben Neyim? Elgiz Müzesi, İstanbul /Co-curator of exhibition curated from Elgiz Collection (about hope and resilience of community after earthquake, specifically focusing on children experience, and interaction during exhibition visits)
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2022 4. İstanbul Experimental Film Festival / participation with short video ‘Remember the summer/ any summer’ screened in Salt Beyoğlu
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2021 Keeping It Modern, GETTY Foundation, ODTÜ & TU Delft / participation as a researcher under my supervisor Prof. Dr. Ayşen Savaş, visual production of collages, curatorial assisting, archival study. METU CAMPUS DOCUMENTED & Travelling exhibition
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2021 Volume Virtual Exhibition, ODTÜ / exhibition assistant, curatorial researcher
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2020 ODTÜ Architecture Archive No.11 Exhibition / exhibition assistant
extended biography
Academic and Architectural Research
Melike Yürekli (b. 1996) is an architect and researcher working across architecture, architectural media, archives, and representation. She graduated from Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) in 2020 and completed her first Master’s degree in Architecture there in 2023. Her research increasingly focused on how architecture is documented, visualized, and communicated through drawings, photographs, maps, magazines, and other forms of media.
Her first Master’s thesis, Mapping Modern Campuses: An Imaginative Projection Backward in Time, investigated modern university campuses through archival research, mapping, and visual reconstruction. Drawing on Michael Hays and Robin Evans, she approached projection and mapping as research tools and methods for tracing architectural networks. The study compared five campuses through their visual and textual material, considering architects, institutions, social and political conditions, physical environments, and users.
During her studies, she worked with Prof. Dr. Ayşen Savaş, coordinator of the Getty Keeping It Modern Project for METU, participated in the Campus Utopias collaboration with TU Delft, and assisted courses including Architecture and Different Modes of Representation and Digital Volume Exhibition.
She later completed the Master’s Program in Architectural and Cultural Heritage at Hochschule Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in 2026. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gernot Weckherlin, her thesis, Re-Reading an Architectural Magazine: A Discursive and Visual Analysis of Mimar/Arkitekt, examined the architectural magazine as both a medium and an archive. The research focused on how architectural knowledge and visual material were selected, organized, circulated, and interpreted through photographs, drawings, plans, texts, layouts, and editorial structures.
Her current research interests center on architectural magazines, print and visual media, archives, representation, and image circulation, particularly the ways publications organize, preserve, and reframe architectural knowledge. Over the past year in Berlin, she has been developing this direction further while bringing it into closer relation with photography, exhibition-making, and visual culture.
Artistic and Curatorial Practice
Alongside her architectural and academic work, Melike Yürekli develops an independent practice in photography, curating, and exhibition-making. Her interest in photography began in childhood with an analogue camera and later evolved around movement, double exposure, reflection, light, and the visual ambiguity of everyday urban situations.
Photography has remained closely connected to bodily movement and walking in her practice. Through long city walks, she records ordinary situations and is interested in how framing, reflection, repetition, and fragmentation can shift the way familiar environments are perceived.
Her curatorial practice developed through the Curating Contemporary Art Program at Akbank Sanat and Open Dialogue Istanbul, where she worked on curatorial research, exhibition design, art management, artist relations, and museum organization. Her project In Absence was first realized online in 2021 and later exhibited at Akbank Sanat in 2024.
She later worked at Elgiz Museum, contributing to exhibitions, open calls, artist communication, publications, installation and de-installation processes, exhibition-space organization, and the management of a private contemporary art collection.
She also worked at Istanbul 74, where she was involved in exhibitions, residency programs, workshops, artist research, and cultural projects. In parallel, she has worked as an artist assistant, supporting artistic production and exhibition processes.
Her artistic and curatorial work remains connected to her academic interests in images, archives, representation, and visual culture. Since moving to Berlin, she has been continuing this practice independently while also looking to experiment with new medium and forms of production, expanding her work beyond photography toward different visual, spatial, and exhibition-based approaches.