Ulya Soley

Ulya Soley works at Hamburger Bahnhof as a curator. She completed her MA in Culture, Criticism, and Curation at Central Saint Martins, and her BA in Art History and Psychology at McGill University. From 2013 to 2025, she worked at Pera Museum in Istanbul as a curator and publications editor, where she also commissioned and led numerous contemporary projects inspired by the museum’s collections. Alongside her institutional work, she has independently curated exhibitions and public programs. Some of her curatorial projects include Feelings in Common (2025), Souvenirs of the Future (2023) and A Question of Taste (2021) at Pera Museum; Farah Al Qasimi: Desert Hyacinth at Sanatorium; all familiar, all foreign at Versus Art Project; Spirits on the Ground at DIANA NY; and How shall we dress for the occasion?, Protocinema at 601 Artspace in New York.

She has contributed editorial work to various artist books and magazines, and her writing has appeared in publications such as Texte zur Kunst, e-flux, CTM Magazine, Sanat Dünyamız, Argonotlar, Manifold, and Art unlimited. In 2024, she was a fellow at the Kulturakademie Tarabya, where she conducted research on queer nightlife as a form of resistance. She is a recipient of the British Council Culture and Creativity Award and a participant in the British Council's 2023–24 Future Leaders programme. Her practice centers on exploring future scenarios through a queer feminist lens, employing speculative thinking and experimentation as methodology.