Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Basak Senova is a curator and designer, based in Vienna. She studied Literature and Graphic Design (MFA in Graphic Design and PhD in Art, Design, and Architecture at Bilkent University) and attended the 7th Curatorial Training Programme of De Appel, Amsterdam. She lectured at various universities in Turkey and, in 2017, received her Associate Professorship from the Higher Education Council of Turkey and a resident fellowship at the University of the Arts, Helsinki. From 2020 to 2022, she served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, running the Octopus Programme. She currently holds a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher position there with her PEEK project Atlas (of Creative Mechanisms): [Curating-Conducting], awarded by FWF–Austrian Science Fund (2022–2027). Senova is a founding member of NOMAD and organiser of the “ctrl_alt_del” sound art project and “Upgrade!Istanbul.” She has edited numerous publications and served as editorial correspondent for ibraaz.org (2012–2016), Turkish correspondent for Flash Art International (2014–2023), and on the editorial board of PASS, the International Biennial Association’s journal (2016–2023). She curated the Zorlu Center Collection and edited its publications (2011–2012) and has served on advisory boards for the Turkish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the Istanbul Biennial, and the Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-0 ARK Underground in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She curated the Pavilion of Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) and the Pavilion of North Macedonia at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). She co-curated UNCOVERED (Cyprus, 2011–2013) and the 2nd and 5th Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-0 ARK Underground (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2013, 2019). Senova curated Helsinki Photography Biennial 2014, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery 2014 (Vancouver), Jerusalem Show VII: Fractures (2014), Lines of Passage (Lesvos, 2016), and B7L9’s inaugural exhibition Climbing Through the Tide (Tunis, 2019). Between 2017 and 2019, she curated eight exhibitions within CrossSections in Vienna, Helsinki, Stockholm, and Rome. She concluded the Octopus Programme in 2022 with exhibitions in Tunis and Vienna. Recent projects include Ivy (Istanbul, 2022), Liquid Saturation (Palermo, 2022), 2Fold (Kyrenia, 2022), Simurgh. Ten Women Artists from Iran (Berlin, 2023), Sediment (co-curated with Dicle Bestas, Graz, 2024), Insaturo (Vienna, 2024), Intangible (Vienna, 2024), The Atlas (Vienna, 2024), Mirror (co-curated with Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Agrigento, 2025), and Soil & Water (co-curated with Johan Thom, South Africa, 2025–2026).
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Basak Senova is the Project Leader of 'The Atlas (of Creative Mechanisms): [Curating-Conducting]' PEEK project, awarded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and hosted by the Institute of Art Sciences and Art Education, University of Applied Arts Vienna.
"A Research of Doing" (ARD) is an Africa UniNet Project, supported by OeAD Africa-UniNet and BMBWF. Coordinating institution: University of Applied Arts Vienna, Institute for Art Studies and Art Education (Austria) and Partner institution: University of Pretoria (South Africa).
Running the Octopus Fellowship Programme