Ali Emir Tapan was born on November 12, 1983 in Istanbul. After receiving his BA in Intellectual History at Connecticut College in 2007, the artist went on to complete his MFA at Central Saint Martins College in 2010.
Tapan is a multidisciplinary artist who expresses his ideas and passions through various media such as film, video, sculpture and performance, without being bound to a specific material. With his work, he investigates self-defeating utopias, urban fauna as a mode of totemic representation, and the conjunction of private, public and spiritual spaces through an installation and live-art based practice.
In his recent works, Tapan delves into the "alchemical" process that defines the cyclical ephemerality and resurgence of moments. The resulting form in the artist's work assumes the role of a spectral narrative, having borne witness to its own existence and bearing the scars of the forces that have metamorphosed it. Tapan underscores the grace of transformation by scrutinizing both the literal and figurative aspects of these scars.
Tapan currently lives and works in Berlin and Istanbul.