Seyhan Kurt (born December 16, 1971) is a French-Turkish poet, writer, anthropologist and sociologist.
Kurt was born in the commune of Bourgoin-Jallieu in Grenoble, France. He studied at the ÃÂcole de Jean Jaurès in Lyon. He studied painting in France and dramaturgy and art history in ðzmir.
In 1992 and 1993, he exhibited his paintings in abstract style and oil painting technique in two solo exhibitions at Mersin State Fine Arts Gallery. He studied French Language and Literature, Sociology and Anthropology. He conducted research on architecture and urban culture in Italy and Greece. He received his master's degree from Ankara University, Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Department of Anthropology. In 2020, he edited Falih Rñfkñ Atay's Coast of Taymis (1934), a political, sociological and anthropological analysis of his observations during his travels in England and Europe. He worked on Jean Baudrillard's simulation theory and consumer society. He wrote articles on cinema, architecture, immigration and modern art.
In his 2021 book From Household to Home State, published by ðletià Âim Publication, he emphasized the importance of not only architecture, but also disciplines such as anthropology and sociology that examine daily practices, regulations and consumption phenomena when dealing with the concept of "Turkish house". In his study, he adopted an interdisciplinary method by utilizing different fields from Turkish cinema to oral culture:<blockquote>" Seyhan KurtâÂÂs book From Household to Home State traces the image of the âÂÂTurkish house,â which dates from the 19th century to the present day, historically, anthropologically, sociologically, architecturally, and economically. According to Kurt, this image has a direct relationship to collective memory. Therefore, the âÂÂTurkish houseâ has a meaning that refers to daily life here, as well as to architecture. The resources utilized by Kurt, who focuses on daily life as the center of his work, cover a wide range of topics, from art history to literature, anthropology to architecture, cinema to ancient Greek and Roman history."</blockquote> The book consists of three main parts. chapter one: âÂÂTraditional Life: Architecture, History and Everyday Practices". Part two: "Houses Today, Regulation and Consumption". Third part: "Urban Life, Street, Neighborhood and Balcony":<blockquote>"However, before these chapters the author investigates the concepts of âÂÂwhileâ and âÂÂtimeâ by giving examples from Anatolian life, Turkish literature, thought, and cinema under the title of âÂÂIn Respect of While, Time and Urban Space.â According to him, these basic concepts are some of the most important arguments in comprehending the historical, social and economic processes that a society goes through. In Istanbul and eventually in Anatolia, clock interiors of the household type and clock towers in the town square since the end of the 19th century have transformed the world of thought and individual-city relations. How this process occurred, including encountered problems, is explained comprehensively by using the texts of significant writers and thinkers, such as Ahmet Hamdi Tanpñnar, Ahmet Haà Âim, Norbert Elias, Jacques Ranciere, Orhan Pamuk, Georg Simmel, Theodor Adorno and Richard Sennett."</blockquote> the author begins with objects to describe the transformation of the Turkish house. Wall clocks, showcases, curtains, lace, microwave ovens, American kitchens, furniture on one side; Cedar, courtyard, tandoor, hearth, gizzard, closet, gushane, doors, knockers, "who came windows" on the other side. Seyhan Kurt's book, which we can call an anthropological study rather than architecture, examines this concept of Turkish House. But starting from the perception of time, he looks at the use of space, the placement of things and daily life. According to art historian Professor Jale N. Erzen, an important emphasis of the book, which examines the most general and special, individual and social elements of life in all details, is the handling of body/space/object relations in terms of architectural quality. Interviews with Seyhan Kurt about the book were published in Mediascope TV, Artfulliving, Bisavblog and Hürriyet newspaper.
Between 1990 and 2017, some of his poems were translated into French, English, German, Greek and Estonian.