San Diego State’s interim director and associate professor of graphic design, Arzu Ozkal, will succeed Eric Smigel as director of Arts Alive SDSU beginning on July 1. Ozkal is an internationally known creative practitioner and graphic designer whose research centers on collaboration and design’s capacity to search for forms of creative developments.
Her contributions to Arts Alive SDSU began when she joined the program in the fall of 2014. Arts Alive SDSU aims to raise the visibility of art in the university’s curriculum by promoting innovative collaborations, creative research and encouraging exploratory conversations among students and faculty. Ozkal has facilitated projects within the program that gives the artistic community on campus an opportunity to integrate art within their education.
Once director, her responsibilities will include raising awareness of the arts programs at SDSU and administrating collaborations among the campus community in all disciplines from arts to sciences.
“To be honest, from the beginning I always thought of Arts Alive as a more underground entity in a very established academic system,” Ozkal said. “I love the experimental and collaborative spirit that is willing to support nontraditional programming and pedagogy.”
One project she organized for Arts Alive SDSU was the Phage Infused Evening of Music, Poetry and Art Exhibition which recognized the 100th anniversary of the discovery of phage. She curated the art exhibition and encouraged students from various backgrounds in bioscience, creative writing, music and design to collectively work together to create art.
She also co-taught a class for the Interdisciplinary Collaborative Teaching Program with biology professors Anca Segall and Forest Rohwer. This course combined science and design and aimed to improve students’ scientific understanding by teaching them how to effectively analyze and communicate complex data.
Ozkal is also involved in other on campus organizations such as Weber Honors College and ZIP Idea Lab; however, her qualifications for the position as director go beyond her involvement with SDSU.
Ozkal’s path as a graphic designer began when she was 13 years old living in her hometown of Ankara, Turkey. Her older sister was panicking to finish a design project for school on time, so she gave Ozkal Pantone markers, which were scarce and expensive for their time, and left her to finish coloring the project.
“I was paralyzed for a minute,” Ozkal said. “I still remember vividly the moment I opened one [Pantone marker] and hesitantly started coloring… carefully. I finished the whole thing and I thought I did a phenomenal job. That day I decided to pursue design mainly because I thought it was all about coloring stuff.”
She attended Bilkent University in Turkey where she earned a bachelor’s in fine arts degree for graphic design in 1998. She then moved to America in 2003 where she attended the University of Buffalo in New York and received her master’s degree in fine arts.
Ozkal went on to participate in and establish various research projects such as Silk Road Songbook, which she co-founded alongside Millie Chen. This long-term art project focuses on the Silk Road: an ancient Eurasian trade route between Istanbul, West and Central Asia and Xi’an. Ozkal and Chen travel to countries along the Silk Road to collaborate with local artists and musicians to create original work that reflects their cultural identities. Silk Road Songbook gives the people of that landscape an outlet to voice their social concerns through art and song. According to their website, this project aims to answer the question: “Where there is limited freedom of expression, how can creative resiliency thrive?”
“Typically, if the work solves other people’s problems or communicates their ideas, it is considered design; if it is self expression, it is considered art,” Ozkal said. “I think I operate in between. My research focuses on that in-between state and how artists and designers borrow methods and tools from each other.”
Out of the work she has published throughout her career, “Gün: Women’s Networks” (2013), which Ozkal co-edited with Dr. Claudia Pederson, is the publication she is most proud of. This book encompasses a Turkish tradition of social networking where women come together to share tea and food, exchange recipes and skills, share opinions and remedies and discuss issues about their local communities. According to Ozkal, this tradition demonstrates the importance of togetherness rather than individualism. She values having multiple voices, opinions and questions while producing her work.
The idea of women’s participation in the public sphere is important to Ozkal because growing up in Turkey she had limited access because of her gender. Years ago, she encountered a photograph of The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which was a social movement drawing attention to missing children in Argentina during the military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. This photograph displayed a group of mothers sitting in the middle of a park wearing white headscarves with the names of their sons embroidered on them. She thought that this photograph was the most powerful use of graphic design and that is why the theme of women’s participation in the public sphere can be seen reflected within her work today.
Another project Ozkal has established that focuses on feminist issues is Home Affairs, a collective of artists from photographers to digital videographers who work together with art institutions on projects that communicate social issues impacting women. She founded Home Affairs with international artist and writer, Nanette Yannuzzi, who has known Ozkal for over 10 years.
“Once she [Ozkal] has an idea or project in mind, she will work endlessly to manifest it,” Yannuzzi said. “She is kind, inclusive and has a wonderfully wry sense of humor. She thinks, breathes and lives in the world of design and sees its connections to a plethora of practices in art and in life.”
Ozkal’s work, which includes limited-edition publications and video installations, is in collections across the country such as in Thomas J. Watson Library, The Met and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has also been shown internationally in venues such as Gallery Wallywoods in Berlin, Germany, Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece and Galeria Zero in Barcelona, Spain. To Ozkal, sharing her work and hearing feedback from audiences of different cultures and backgrounds is an honor.
“Arzu is an artist, educator and intellectual with a strong international presence and brings that into whatever she is doing,” Yannuzzi said. “This alone is a wonderful quality to have in a director, especially at an institution like SDSU.”
Before becoming director, Ozkal will speak with the campus community to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Arts Alive SDSU and create a plan that will further the success of the program. In the meantime, she plans to continue to encourage collaborations between artists on campus and raise awareness of art’s role in communication and initiating change.
Check out Ozkal’s studio by visiting https://www.contrary.info.
