Deniz Soezen (*1981, A/TR) is an artist & art educator who has been moving around a lot since her early childhood. She was born in Vienna and grew up between Turkey and Austria. Currently she lives and works in Zurich and Vienna.
Deniz Soezen’s practice investigates the notion of culture, subjectivity and the unresolved nature of belonging. Her work combines films, found objects, personal archives, crafted artefacts and the development of her British alter ego Suzan Dennis. Through the multitude of symbols, subtitles and voices layered in several languages in her films, images and installations, she explores the multi-layered nature of culture and identity.
Her works have been shown in various contexts in Austria and internationally. Some of her video-works can be watched online.
Deniz is currently enrolled as a PhD-student at the Institute for Art Education at the Zurich University of the Arts in cooperation with the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her research is concerned with the development of theory and practice of transcultural art education using new media through a post-colonial perspective.
Exhibitions (Selection)
“Living Across – Spaces of Migration”, group exhibition (cat.), curated by Christian Kravagna, x:hibit, Vienna (2010), “be longing”, solo show feat. Suzan Dennis,Visual Arts Platform, ACF, London (2010); “Plattform Junge Kunst” (cat.), Galerie Bäckerstrasse 4, Wien (2009); “groupe/grope”, group show, Area 10, Peckham, London (2009). Diagonale, Festival of Austrian Film (cat.), Graz (2008 und 2006).
An autobiographical note
After her application was rejected at the Vienna Film Academy in the year 2000 (she had made three fairly badly edited films in only three weeks using two video-recorders for analogue editing), Deniz went on to study Fine Art at “the Angewandte”, the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, with occasional excursions into Philosophy, Roman languages/ literature and Arabic. She received her diploma in Fine Art in 2005. Shortly after she started working in the field of gallery education at the Vienna Secession. Attempts to move to Paris and enroll for a PhD in “film and contemporary art” at Sorbonne Paris III failed, as the professor in charge explained to her that France was an anti-feminist country and that her proposal titled trans was not welcome there. Her dreams shattered Deniz went to see Prof. Dr. Werner at the “Angewandte” in Vienna. It was her who suggested that she should apply to Goldsmiths College in London. No idea what she was doing, Deniz gave it a shot and it all worked out miraculously. Before moving to London Deniz went through an intense work experience as art educator and participating researcher at documenta12 in Kassel, Germany. She then was a lucky and grateful recipient of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s research preparation masters scheme award (2007-2009) and completed her postgraduate studies in art practice at Goldsmiths College in London. Deniz felt very much at home and inspired by London, a multicultural city, where over 160 languages are spoken. There she developed her British alter ego Suzan Dennis whose work was first featured in her MFA degree show in July 2009 and later shown at the Austrian Cultural Forum, Visual Arts Platform in London in 2010.
After her studies Deniz attempted to move to Istanbul where she worked as an artist assistant at the 11th International Istanbul Biennial. However she never got paid and after getting the best hair-cut ever, Deniz decided to move back to Vienna, mainly because of the lack of funds. Between 2009-2011 she worked as a lecturer in the department of time-based media at the University of Arts in Linz and in order to pay her rent took on a part-time job as junior web developer, editing web-content for Ford (the car!) Austria. For a very short time she also worked for Kurt Mayer Film. A period of personal and professional frustration was followed by several exhibitions in 2010.
In 2011 Deniz received a calling from Switzerland and started her research project at the Institute for Art Education at the Zurich University of the Arts in cooperation with the museum Rietberg Zurich, an art museum for Non-European cultures. There she was given the opportunity to conceive a transnational art educational project between pupils in Switzerland and Turkey using digital media. The results of these virtual encounters investigating different aspects of mysticism in Islam and other religions of the world were presented to a wider public throughout the exhibition „Mysticism –Yearning for the Absolute“ at Museum Rietberg in Zurich and are published on YouTube.
