In January, CreativeMornings Istanbul will take place physically at ATÖLYE. In this edition, we are hosting Hazal Sipahi, a podcaster and trainer, under the theme “Free”. During the event, based on her own story, Hazal will talk about freedom of the press and how her work is connected to this theme.
Schedule:
09:00-09:30: Welcoming and Breakfast
09:30-10:00: Talk
10:00-10.30: Q&A and Networking
*This event will be held in Turkish.
About the Speaker:
Hazal Sipahi received her bachelor’s degree in the Journalism department of Bahçeşehir University and her minor in the department of American Culture and Literature. While continuing her undergraduate degree, she took cinema, literature, international journalism and history courses from King’s College London and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She worked at Al Jazeera Balkans, Habertürk, and Depo. In 2017, she completed her master’s degree in the Department of Cultural Policy and Management at Belgrade University of Arts. She participated at various international conferences with her master’s thesis titled Interventions in Artistic Freedom of Expression: Coping with Censorship in Turkey.
Returning to Turkey in 2018, Hazal worked as the Event Coordinator of Mekan Sestra and the Project Coordinator of the “sub” initiative led by the artists for a year. At the end of 2019, she received podcast training from the founders of the Swedish company Soundtelling at the NewsLabTurkey Podcast Academy, supported by The Guardian Foundation and the Swedish Consulate. In 2020, she started the podcast project named Mental Klitoris. Continuing to work on podcasts within NewsLabTurkey since 2020, Hazal hosted the podcast series of the NLTR Sustainable Journalism Program supported by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Turkey. She was the Project Coordinator of NewsLabTurkey’s Incubator for Independent Media project. She delivered podcast training to various organizations in Turkey.
Hazal Sipahi is currently a podcast producer, presenter, and trainer and hosting T24’s Yayınlanması Kaydıyla podcast series. Hazal produces content and gives speeches on sex, sexuality, sexual health, sexual violence, gender and pleasure, is also the Chairperson of the Association for Struggle Against Sexual Violence.
January’s Theme is Free.
What is free comes in many flavors. Free to come, free to go. Free to love, free to deliciously inhabit our own skin, free to try on all the possible version of ourselves. “Free,” as in not charging a single cent. Free to speak truth to power. Free to say no to what’s on offer.
However, to be free to — to dream, to create, to imagine — requires freedom from. To be free from want and fear, to be free from censoring forces, to be free from oppression. To strive for true freedom is to honor our obligations to each other, to fight for our mutual liberation.
When someone is free to achieve their fullest creative expression, they become a beacon for all of us. How will you make space for your own flourishing and that of others, so that the world around you might also bend towards freedom?
Our Charlotte chapter chose this month’s exploration of Free and Lo’Vonia Parks illustrated the theme.