Working across painting, sculpture and participatory installations, Seylan Kandak’s practice unfolds at the intersection of contemporary art and socially engaged art. Her work engages with notions of memory, fragility, protection and regeneration, exploring how individual experiences are intertwined with collective constructions.

Her approach is grounded in process and transformation. Through tactile gestures, layering, folding, scratching and assembling, she produces forms that oscillate between permanence and ephemerality. Materials such as paper, resin or canvas become sites where traces of action, time and memory are inscribed, revealing tensions between construction and collapse, visibility and disappearance.

Central to her practice is the recurring motif of the oval, conceived as a porous and mutable form — at once protective and vulnerable, organic and abstract. These shapes evoke cocoons, seeds or bodily interiors, functioning as thresholds between interior and exterior, intimacy and exposure. They open up a space where the boundaries between the individual body and the collective body become unstable.

Kandak’s work also extends into participatory and socially engaged contexts. Through collective installations and performative protocols, she creates situations where participants contribute to the transformation of forms and meanings. These shared processes activate emotional, relational and reflective dimensions, positioning art as a potential tool for learning, empathy and social awareness.

Her research-based practice is informed by her ongoing PhD in Sustainability at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), where she investigates participatory social art as a tool for social sustainability, well-being and active citizenship. Her work operates between the experiential and the analytical, seeking to articulate how aesthetic experiences can generate inner transformation and foster engagement with social and environmental issues.

Her recent exhibitions and projects include Ephemeral Sculptures (Museu Can Framis – Fundació Vila Casas, Barcelona, 2022), The Concepts That Matter (Centre Cívic Cotxeres Borrell, Barcelona, 2023), Navigating Resilience (Centre Cívic Barceloneta, 2025), and the XI Premi de Pintura Torres García – Ciutat de Mataró (Fundació Iluro, 2026), where she was selected as a finalist.