Özge Topçu is a multimedia artist whose practice is centered on installation. She works with everyday objects, maquette techniques, and ceramics to construct spatial propositions that question how reality is produced, stabilized, and made credible.
Her work investigates the fictional structures underlying contemporary world systems and examines how these constructions acquire authority and shape collective belief. Rather than opposing fiction with truth, Topçu is interested in how credibility itself is engineered—how narratives become absolute, and how alternative readings are dismissed or rendered invisible. Through her installations, she creates ambiguous spaces that resist the certainty of modern rational frameworks and introduce zones of instability, misreading, and doubt.
Born in the westernmost region of Turkey and living in Lisbon—the western edge of Europe—while coming from the easternmost part of Europe, Topçu works from a position shaped by the Mediterranean as both a connective and divisive geography. From this vantage point, she examines how Eastern and Western identities are politically constructed, mythologized, and hierarchized. Her practice focuses on the narratives produced around national and cultural identity, exposing omissions, distortions, and suppressed histories.
Research plays a central role in her methodology. Drawing from archaeology, linguistics, mythology, and scientific inquiry, she approaches knowledge as something provisional and fragmentary. The outcomes of her research are translated into material form through sculptural and spatial arrangements, where abstract concepts are embodied in physical structures. These installations function as speculative sites—proposals rather than conclusions—inviting viewers to reconsider how meaning, history, and reality are assembled.
Özge Topçu born in 1987, Kirklareli (Turkey) is a contemporary artist based in Lisbon and Istanbul.
Topçu holds a BA in Combined Arts from Yıldız Technical University graduating with the University Medal for best academic achievement and a BA in Science Teaching from Istanbul University. She later attended an MA exchange at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, Germany, within the Image–Space–Object–Glass department. This dual background in science and art continues to shape her analytical yet intuitive approach to form and research.
Her solo exhibitions include Mis-predictions at FBC London (2024), Inside the Cistern at Hypercube Space, Lisbon (2022), Flat Earth / W Axis at Pilot Gallery, Istanbul (2019), and Alteration Depression at Hush Gallery (2014). Her work has been presented internationally at institutions and exhibitions such as Ars Electronica (Linz), Framer Framed (Amsterdam), Art Night London, MAC Belfast, Kreuzberg Pavilion (Berlin), Depo (Istanbul), and Casa do Comum (Lisbon).
Topçu is a recipient of grants from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, SAHA Foundation, and Faruk Sade Art Foundation, and was a finalist for the MAC International Ulster Bank Prize. She is the founder and former director of Hypercube Space in Lisbon, an interdisciplinary exhibition platform active between 2020 and 2023. Her practice continues to develop through exhibitions, institutional collaborations, and long-term research projects connecting contemporary art with scientific and historical inquiry.
