Defne Oruç
Position title: Ph.D. Student; TA AH/GEN&WS 414: Contemporary Queer Art and Visual Culture (Fall 2026)
Pronouns: she/her
Email: doruc@wisc.edu
Website: Defne Oruç's Personal Webpage
Education
B.A. Fine Art and History of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London
M.A History of Art, University College London
Research Interests
Contemporary art and the Global South, memory studies, testimony, landscape, feminist art historiography.
Biography
Defne is a doctoral student specializing in contemporary art. Her research explores the variations and refusals of testimony in lens-based media, representations of violence, and imaginaries of peace, truth and justice across the Middle East and Latin America. She is pursuing a doctoral minor in Environmental and Visual Studies and the Global South.
Defne is a member of the Archivo Research Platform for Photography and Visual Culture. Previously, she was a Junior Fellow in the Art Department at Goldsmiths (2022-2023).
Publications
Journal article (peer-reviewed): “Mediating the Past, Making (in) the Present: Contemporary Artistic Practices from Türkiye and the Construction of Memory around 6-7 September 1955,” Archivo Papers 5 (July):123-38.
Book review: “Archiving the Commons: Looking Through the Lens of bak.ma.” Archivo Photofile, 13 May 2025.