19.06.2025
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
Hamburger Bahnhof is delighted to welcome Ulya Soley as SAHA Curator. A new member of the curatorial team, Soley will contribute to the museum’s programs, encompassing curatorial oversight of exhibitions and facilitating their mediation to diverse audiences in Berlin and beyond. Her appointment underscores the commitment to promoting cultural diversity and inclusion within the museum’s programming.
Ulya Soley is a curator and writer. She holds an MA in Culture, Criticism, and Curation from Central Saint Martins College in London and a BA in Art History and Psychology from McGill University in Montreal.
From 2013 to 2025, she worked as a curator and editor of publications at the Pera Museum in Istanbul, where she initiated and led numerous contemporary projects rooted in the museum’s collection. Alongside her institutional work, she has independently curated exhibitions and public programmes. Her curatorial projects include Souvenirs of the Future and A Question of Taste at the Pera Museum; all familiar, all foreign at Versus Art Project; Spirits on the Ground at DIANA NY; Hosting Bodies at Sanatorium; and How shall we dress for the occasion? Protocinema at 601 Artspace in New York.
Soley has contributed editorially to various artist books and magazines, and her writings have appeared in Texte zur Kunst, e-flux, Sanat Dünyamız, Argonotlar, Manifold, CTM Magazine, and Art unlimited. In 2024, she was a fellow at the Tarabya Cultural Academy, where she researched queer nightlife as a form of resistance.
She is the recipient of the British Council Culture and Creativity Award and a participant in the British Council Future Leaders Programme 2023–24.
At the core of her practice lies an engagement with speculative thinking and experimental approaches, exploring visions of the future from a queer-feminist perspective.
The position of SAHA Curator is made possible by the SAHA Association, Istanbul, together with seven individual patrons of SAHA, and with the support of burgbad GmbH and Akbank Sanat Art Centre. For the next three years, it will strengthen the museum’s global outlook.