Gülbeden Kulbay is an interdisciplinary artist based in Stockholm, Sweden. With a prolific career spanning 19 years, her varied artistic practice includes performance, community-engaged art, and culinary actions. At the core of her work lie questions and explorations of the body; of presence and sensual experience; of connecting with other bodies, be they human or non-human. Connection, collaboration and negotiation in particular are fundamental to her practice, as she endeavours to illuminate the network of interrelations and interdependencies we are all enmeshed in – to show how we all need each other. In this sense, her works offer a critique of the capitalist mode of living and the sense of alienation from self and others it engenders.
Throughout her projects Kulbay displays a high degree of sensitivity, mindfulness and precision. Each work is the result of careful negotiation with the site, its environment, its history, its temporality, her collaborators and her audience, their personal stories. It is this sensitivity she invites us to awaken within ourselves too.
Kulbay’s work has been shown in Sweden, across Europe, and the USA, with pieces currently in the collections of Falun Kommun and Botkyrka Kommun. Notable performances include: Polyrit, Stockholm Fringe festival (2022), In case of shatter, Färgfabriken, Stockholm (2021), PowerPerformance, Art/Life Institute, Kingston, NY (2018), Open my heart, Venice International Performance Art Week (2017).
A talk I made at “Arts as a force for social change” organised by Intercult, 2021
Here is a short film about my artistic work, 2020
Gülbeden Kulbay 