Manchester Area, United Kingdom
Bal is a curator and an art and visual culture theorist. She is the founder of Open Space, the influential art forum based in Vienna since 2007. She has received several awards for the “distinguished” delivery of programs recognized as amongst the best accomplishments in the field of contemporary art. The primary focus of Open Space is to bring different critical perspectives on art and visual culture to the surface in search for new outlines of contemporary arts. Gulsen Bal, Assc. Prof, Dr., joined Manchester School of Art as Senior Lecturer in Curating (Art Theory & Practice) in 2020. She previously held the position of Visiting Research Fellow at Manchester School of Art working in Contextual Practice, in curating with her main focus on the Department of Art & Performance, Art Theory and Practice programmes (Curating, Art History, Fine Art, BA Degree & Department of Contemporary Curating, MA/MFA Degree) between 2019 to 2020. At the same time, she was lecturer in the Faculty of Arts at ARUCAD - Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design in Cyprus from 2018 to 2020. Bal was appointed as Departmental Advisory Consultant at Istanbul Bilgi University during 2017-18, where she was Head of Department as well as holding the position of Course & Program Coordinator, NABA and Domus Academy liaison and Erasmus+ co-ordinator for the period of 2013-17. Additionally, she lectured as a Visiting Professor at Istanbul Yeditepe University for the MA degree program in Curatorial Studies between 2013 and 2017. She taught at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) in the Department of Visual Culture from 2008 to 2013.
MA/MFA Contemporary Curating Programme
Department of Art Theory & Practice
Department of Fine Art, BA/MA Degrees & Department of Art, Theory and Practice Programmes, BA Degree & Department of Contemporary Curating, MA/MFA Degree at Manchester School of Art
Open Space – Verein für ein neues Forum von Kunst und visueller Kultur aims to bring diverse creative practices together to encourage exchange and joint projects with its visual arts programme within its long established history in Vienna. The programme of Open Space intends to explore the future, generating new ideas to improve cross-border as well as critical dialogues to facilitate new kinds of creative connections that are concerned with interconnected routes within the European space in which a certain creative agenda offers new potentials in the field of contemporary art.
The Faculty of Arts
Department of Applied Science, BA Degree
Also hold the positions of Lecturing; NABA & Domus Academy Liaison; Erasmus Department Coordinator at the Department of Applied Science during 2013-17
Senior Lecturer at the Department of Applied Science, BA Degree Supervision at the Cultural Studies Department, MA Degree