Göksu Kunak

Göksu Kunak, born 1985 in Ankara, is a Berlin-based artist, performance director, writer, and researcher working across performance, installation, text, and theory. Their practice examines the codes and conventions of spaces such as the white cube, black box, and public realm, unfolding through action-based performances, evening-length theater works, and site-responsive interventions. Kunak’s work draws on hybrid dramaturgies shaped by chrono-politics, non-Western methodologies, and the performative structures of everyday life. Influenced by Arabesk culture and science fiction, their texts and performances create speculative scenarios that criticize heteropatriarchal norms, Orientalism, and self-censorship. Simulacrum is a central concern in their investigation of bodily presence and representation. In recent installations and performances, Kunak explores the body within urban environments, treating it as an object alongside cars or construction sites. They use theatricality and language as sculptural material. With a background in literary experimentation and physical performance, Kunak crafts artistic responses to contemporary contradictions and suppressed histories. In 2025 Kunak was awarded the Akademie der Künste Kunstpreis (Berlin Prize for Art) in the category of Performing Arts. Their work has been presented internationally at institutions and platforms including Performa Biennial in New York, Neue Nationalgalerie, Sophiensaele, and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, MAPS Museum in Køge (Denmark), Migros Museum in Zurich, deSingel Arts Center in Antwerp, Kunsthalle Krems-Donau Festival, and Kaaitheater in Brussels among others.