A Multidisciplinary Creator: that is how the Visual Artist Ebru Gümrükçüoğlu, 32, would like to describe her abilities and talents. Studio Coordinator at the renowned foundation IKSV (ISTANBUL KULTUR SANAT VAKFİ), her work goes way beyond that.

At the beginning of her career, Ebru decided to study art to be able to call herself an artist. That’s when she graduated in Visual Arts at Sabancı University (Sabancı Üniversitesi) and did her Master Degree in Film Studies. “After graduation a student just wants to be an artist. I prepared a portfolio and started knocking at doors literally asking people to let me be an artist”, she recalls to The Dank Project.

“None of that makes you a so called artist though!” And I agree. After all, we already debated this fine line here on The Dank Project. So the video producer started to participate in shootings and campaigns, only to realize that it wasn’t satisfying her much. “I worked on advertising agencies too, and just wasn’t a good fit personally”, she explains.

What Ebru really likes is to produce. Produce what, you might ask? The answer is: produce. As simple as that. Some days it will be a painting. Some days it will be a video. Some days it will be a track. Who knows! Whenever creativity strikes, it also decides on which direction to follow.

“I have too much going on, too many ideas and my way to express those ideas can switch. Sometimes I have abstract thoughts about the world and I like to paint them. But that makes me call myself a painter? I don’t think so, it’s just my abstract thoughts there! Sometimes instead, I make a video, and it can make no sense to you but it will make sense to another person. That’s how I express myself.”

That’s when calling herself a Multidisciplinary Creator fits so well. “I really thought about what to call myself. I don’t want to call myself an artist, I honestly don’t want to enter the conversation of what is art and what is not. What I know is that I am a creator and that I create different things. There you go: a description that fits me completely! I will leave it to the audience to decide if it’s art or not.”

With so much in her head, Ebru sometimes gets inspired by an object before starting a creation. “In college my teacher used to say that sometimes we can obsess over one material and then decide what would come up from it.”

Random talents

In between what she studied and her natural talent, Ebru also developed a side-job: DJing. Despite what you might be thinking, it wasn’t her studies that brought her to this so-called career.

Obsessed with indie music, as a teenager Ebru would browse around Last.fm finding new gigs nearby and new bands to discover. “There was such a good nightlife in Istanbul back then! You would go to a small PUB and bump into such a cool concert, from there you would just go to another random place and bam: another cool band playing. We were really on the map, but unfortunately that’s not how it is nowadays.”, she recalls.

“I grew up in such a good environment! But then year after year, more places would close. This oppressive government style killed this life. We used to be as cool and underground as London, but now we’re not international anymore. We can barely hang in there.”

The dissipation of such a nightlife made her and her friends get creative, and so they decided to acquire a DJ mixer to throw their own house parties. That’s when she combined her passion for discovering new tracks, with her long MP3 archive and a mixer and voila: DJ Ebru Gümrükçüoğlu.

“Before the lockdown I used to play at Kiki (Beyoğlu), now I’m just here wishing we could all get over this world pandemic so we can get together and dance!”

For the forsake future we can expect a website where Ebru will sell her paintings. It is very close to be ready, and we will for sure let you know when it happens! For the moment, you can find Ebru’s sets and productions on her Soundcloud. You can also check some of her videos on her Vimeo and follow up with every other creative strike on her Instagram.