Hara’s upcoming exhibition The Promises of Monsters, opening March 2026, explores the representation of bodies and states of being deemed monstrous, foregrounding gendered forms both human and more-than-human. As part of the fourth event in the exhibition’s public programme, Umut Tümay Arslan will speak on the relationship between hauntology and cinema.

Umut Tümay Arslan

Umut Tümay Arslan is a faculty member in the Sociology Department at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. Their work focuses on cinema and psychoanalysis, ethics, aesthetics, and politics; the processing of the past and fiction; feminist cinema and politics; Turkish cinema; social power; representation and meaning-making practices; and psychosocial studies. They have authored numerous articles, books, seminars, and talks. Their books include Çok Tuhaf Çok Tanıdık: Vesikalı Yârim Üzerine (with Nilgün Abisel et al., Metis, 2005), Bu Kâbuslar Neden Cemil? Yeşilçam’da Erkeklik ve Mazlumluk (Metis, 2005), Mazi Kabrinin Hortlakları: Türklük, Melankoli ve Sinema (Metis, 2010), Bir Kapıdan Gireceksin: Türkiye Sineması Üzerine Denemeler (ed.) (Metis, 2012), and Kat, Sinema ve Etik (Metis, 2020). They also co-edited the festschrift volumes Hayatın Taklidi Dünyanın Derdi (Dipnot, 2022) and Başka Bir Dünyadan Şarkılar (Dipnot, 2022) in honour of Nilgün Abisel. Arslan has served as a consultant for the Adalet Atlası podcast series and edited the Cuma Fragmanları series for the independent online publication 5Harfliler.

Hauntology, as a fictional ontology, offers an understanding that disrupts the binaries of reality/illusion and social reality/fiction, revealing how these domains are mutually dependent. In this talk, Umut Tümay Arslan will explore the aesthetic, ethical, and political manifestations of hauntology as “the art of ghosts” in cinema. They will examine how hauntology transforms the politics of cinematic vision and sound, how it haunts the past and future temporalities of the dominant, and how it registers the persistent return of those pushed beyond the visible and audible fields.

Time: 15:30
Free entry

To attend, please register by emailing [email protected]
Entry to Hara is free for visitors with a confirmed registration.

A shuttle service will run from Hacıosman metro station. Participants wishing to use the shuttle must book by 19 December.
For reservations and information: +90 532 669 4821