Ayşe Erarslan, Goethe Institut Istanbul
Director
ayse.erarslan@goethe.de
Ayşe is an anthropologist, a civil society professional and a social entrepreneur. She engages with local, national and international stakeholders for the promotion of dialogue and participation, and for policy building and implementation. She develops collaborations and leads joint projects to strengthen culture and arts activities from a community and human rights-based perspective.
With an experience of over 10 years of involvement as a participant, expert and manager in civil society projects in Turkey, Ayşe believes producing and sharing arts and culture will have a curative and transformative power on both those who need it most and the whole community in Turkey. To this end, she works as the director of CultureCIVIC at Goethe-Institut Istanbul.
Üstüngel İnanç, Goethe Institut Istanbul
Communications Coordinator
uestungel.inanc@goethe.de
Üstüngel studied Dramaturgy and Critical Drama at Istanbul University. Between 1995 and 2010, he worked at the Theatre Festival, Istanbul Biennial and Media Relations departments at the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). In 1998 and 1999, he was involved in international exhibitions such as Mediterranea - Tradition and Contemporary in Ceramics, Propositions and İskorpit [Scorpionfish]. From 2007 to 2009, he was both the project coordinator for the Turkish Pavilion at Venice Biennale and the leader for IKSV’s international projects. From 2010 to 2015, Üstüngel was the press and public relations officer at Rampa, and for the next five years, he worked as the media and marketing coordinator at Arter.
He took part as an actor and crew member in the following theatre productions: Curtainman (AÇOK 1992), I Have No Friend (İstanbul Devlet Tiyatrosu 1992), Spring Awakening (Tiyatrokare 1994), Toad Stories (BİLSAK 1999), and Cotton Fields (Bagaj 2001).
Üstüngel is a passionate contemporary art and opera lover. He has a cat named Ajda.
Leyla Gümüş, Goethe Institut Istanbul
Finance Coordinator
leyla.gumus@goethe.de
After completing her studies in Asian and Cultural Sciences at the University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wihelms-Universität) in Germany in 2017, Leyla came to Istanbul as an Erasmus+ student to study at Istanbul Bilgi University. At her first job as an administrative intern at the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre in Bonn, she took an active part in the organization of UNEVOC TVET Learning Forum and TVET Leadership Program in 2018. Between 2018 and 2020, she joined Germany’s leading volunteering organization, the Senior Expert Service (SES), Foundation of German Industry for International Cooperation, for their grant programmes in Mongolia. Meanwhile, she pursued a postgraduate degree for teaching German as a foreign language at the University of Bonn, and studied project management at the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Cologne. Leyla is interested in classical music, especially in concerts that take place in Beethoven’s hometown of Bonn. She loves traveling and discovering different cuisines of the world.