Çağla Ormanlar Ok

Categories: Art Management

About the artist

Çağla Ormanlar Ok was born in Istanbul in 1967. She graduated from Saint-Benoit French High-School for Girls and Mimar Sinan University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Costume and Set Design. She has been working in the area of theatre, cinema and advertising as art director, set and costume designer and consultant with directors and groups that she finds akin to her design approach.

She worked in all the different phases of the “Assos International Festival of Performing Arts” (1993-1999) project as founder and designer. During the years of the festival, she realized various personal projects with mainly Hüseyin Katırcıoğlu as well as various Turkish and foreign artists and locals.  Team projects such as  “Trojan Story” (1993), “Le Petit Prince”(1994), “Simurg” (1995), “L’Enfance de  l’Art” (1996) and the costume installation entitled “Face Off  “(1998) are a few of these projects.

Çağla Ormanlar Ok was art director in the films “The Blue Exile” (1993), “The Hunter” (1998), “Moon Stories” (1995) directed by Erden Kıral, “Treasure That Falls Out Of The Sky”  (1998) by Wolfram Paulus, “September Storm” (1999) by Atıf Yılmaz and “Away From Home” (2000) by Semih Kaplanoğlu’nun and worked as consultant on some projects by  Ezel Akay, Semir Aslanyürek, Ahmet Uluçay and Derviş Zaim.

She worked on approximately sixty international commercials and video clip projects realized by directors such as Ezel Akay, Richard Gardner, Yom-Tov Mosche, Costa Kekemenis, Jan Bultheel and Alejandro Toledo.

Çağla Ormanlar Ok is also doing research on costume and social identity codes. She was the curator of the “Istanbul Costumes” (Istanbul-Atlanta-1996) exhibition organized by the History Foundation and held at the Imperial Mint Buildings located in the First Courtyard of Topkapı Palace on the occasion of the Istanbul World City Exhibition – HABITAT II and the author of the Changing People Changing Life Styles over 75 Years (1999) section in the book “Costume Fashions During The Republic” published by the Turkish Economic and Social History Foundation. She also realized a costume installation entitled “Galata Over the Centuries” in 1995.

Following the birth of her son in 2002, she took part in numerous projects initiated by NGOs as organizer and participant.  In this last period, following her work as founder and board member of İSTAV (İstanbul Tanıtım ve Araştırma Vakfı – Istanbul Promotion and Research Foundation) in 1993, she has been active in the initiatives of the Cihangir Güzelleştirma Derneği (Cihangir Beautification Society). In 2004, she worked to form the neighbourhood initiative entitled  “Cihangir‘in Yeşil Alanları” (The Green Areas of Cihangir), coordinating the revision of a 3000 m² park in an organization bringing together the families, artists and the various dynamics of the neighbourhood with the local administrations. She also participated actively in efforts to team up against unearned income projects threatening an inoperative archaeological site in the same neighbourhood and to put it to public use. In addition, she undertook the coordination of high grade festivities intended to bring together the neighbourhood dynamics (2005-2006).

In 2004, she was the general coordinator and exhibition location designer of the “Altıncı Daire-i Belediyye” exhibition recounting the history of the Beyoğlu Municipality, the first municipality of the Ottoman Period, organized by the Society of Human Settlements and Bilgi University and supported by approximately twenty research institutions, NGOs, historians and archivists. Also with the Society of Human Settlements, she conducted an endeavour towards drawing attention to the conservation as an archaeological site of the “Tersane-i Amire” (Imperial Docks) located on the Golden Horn shore.

Çağla Ormanlar Ok designed the costumes of the projects “Beş yıl Geçince” (When Five Years Went By) (2007) directed by Mahir Günşıray and “Kasım ile Nasır” (Kasım and Nasır) (Diyarbakır-2006) realized working with young Kurds and “Uzun Yol” (2007) (Long Road) realized working with young Romans of Kuştepe  directed by Şule Ateş.

In 2007, she brought together the Italian artist Bernardo Giorgi with various Turkish designers in a project entitled Patterns-Istanbul/Taksim, intending to create clothing design products by creating map-patterns of the different themes in the Taksim area and worked on the same project as an artist.

She is now working as the Istanbul curator of an intercultural dialogue project entitled Cihangirlink-Komşulararası 01 Cihangir-Mitte realized within the scope of the 2010 Istanbul European Culture Capital program.

caglaorm@superonline.com