The public programme for The Promises of Monsters, Hara’s upcoming exhibition opening in March 2026, kicks off with a series of talks on 7 December. The exhibition’s curator Ezgi Hamzaçebi is joined by Sibel Yardımcı in the first session of the day to discuss the themes and concepts that underpin the exhibition. Drawing on their respective research, they will explore questions such as: In what forms have monsters appeared from past to present? Who has been turned into a monster, by whom, and for what reasons? What does the contemporary monster figure tell us about our current moment? Why is this a “time of monsters”, and what do “the promises of monsters” mean?
The second session of the day brings together Norwegian writer Margrét Helgadóttir and Yusuf Huysal for a conversation about Helgadóttir’s monster anthologies, which gather creaturely figures from across all continents. Focusing on Eurasian monsters, they will discuss the similarities and differences between monster figures that appear in different geographies, as well as how monsters emerge within Helgadóttir’s own writing.
Curated by Ezgi Hamzaçebi, whose academic work centres on the politics and poetics of monstrosity, The Promises of Monsters and its accompanying programme investigate the representations of bodies and states of being that are rendered non-human, feminised, or monstrous.
Session 1
Ezgi Hamzaçebi & Sibel Yardımcı
14:00–15:00
Session 2
Margrét Helgadóttir & Yusuf Huysal*
15:30–16:30
*This talk will be held in English.
To attend, please RSVP by emailing [email protected].
Admission to Hara is free for registered participants.
Guests wishing to use the shuttle service from Hacıosman metro station must reserve a place by calling 0532 669 48 21 no later than the day before the event.
Ezgi Hamzaçebi
After completing her BA in Western Languages and Literatures at Boğaziçi University, Hamzaçebi began working in the field of modern Turkish literature. She received her MA from Boğaziçi’s Department of Turkish Language and Literature before completing her PhD in the same department with a dissertation titled The Promises of Monsters: Those Haunting Turkish Feminist Speculative Fiction, published by Metis in October 2025. Hamzaçebi’s writings have appeared in numerous edited volumes. Since 2019 she has been teaching at Özyeğin University and continues her research on feminist speculative fiction, monster studies and ecocriticism. She is the curator of Hara’s upcoming exhibition The Promises of Monsters, opening in March 2026.
Sibel Yardımcı
Yardımcı has been a member of the Sociology Department at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University since 2004. Her doctoral dissertation, completed at the Sociology Department of Lancaster University, was published as Küreselleşen İstanbul’da Bienal (İletişim, 2005). She has contributed to the preparation of several books, including Yardımcı, Sakatlık Çalışmaları (Koç, 2011), Queer Tahayyül (Sel, 2013) and Türkiye’nin Etnik Coğrafyası: 1927–1965 Ana Dil Haritaları (MSGSÜ, 2015). She is also the author of the Bozcaada monograph 2 Mahalle 1 Ada (Literatür, 2021). Her publications span topics such as urban studies, nationalism, biopolitics, queer theory, disability studies and posthumanism.
Margrét Helgadóttir
Margrét Helgadóttir is a Norwegian-Icelandic writer and anthology editor living in Oslo, Norway. Her stories have appeared in a number of both magazines and print anthologies and her debut book The Stars Seem So Far Away, was finalist to British Fantasy Awards 2016. Margrét is editor of the anthologies Nordic Visions (2023), Winter Tales (2016) and the anthology series Fox Spirit Books of Monsters, seven volumes published between 2014 and 2020. Three volumes were shortlisted to British Fantasy Awards as Best Anthology (2016, 2017 and 2018), and Margret was also awarded with Starburst Magazine’s Brave New Words Award in 2018 for her editor work on Pacific Monsters.
