Oya Damla is a conceptual artist working within and around the varying parameters of performance, installation and sound art. Rooted in conceptual frameworks ranging from phenomenology, critical theory, gender, body dysmorphia, ecosexuality, sonic experience, somatic psychoanalysis, to first / second generation immigrant identity navigation their multidisciplinary practice works to explore the body in relation to thought formulation, the experiential components of sound making, inter/intra-actions of objects and/or humans and the process of identity navigation.
Damla's performances attempt to deconstruct reality in a visceral form and catalyze catharsis or perceptual shifts in a temporal field of interpersonal interaction through performer, perceptual stimuli, conceptual inquiry and audience. Through the use of body as medium, some of Damla's performances specifically work to subvert and neutralize the sexualization of erotic experience by engendering a multidimensional experience of the self and ‘being in the world’.
Founder of The Ear (est 2016), a performance arts venue / gallery / community based in brooklyn, formed in collaboration with peers interested in bridging the world of performance and experimental art in all its mediums, Damla and co-curators have worked towards creating a neutral, non-hierarchical (subtly anti-institutional) hybrid art space (now curatorial platform) charged with the intention of bringing together emerging & established artists of diverse backgrounds & disciplines.
Damla has performed and/or shown site-specific sound installations at Judson Memorial Church, Parallel Performance Space (formerly Panoply Lab), Ideal Glass Gallery, Mudlark Public Theater New Orleans, Chinatown Soup Gallery, LP Art Space, De-Construkt, Rosekill Performance Art Space, Grace Exhibition Space, Trans Pecos, Living Gallery, Bar Sundown, Avalon Lounge Hudson, Greenkill Art Center Kingston, The Ear, Vital Joint, NYC Anarchist Art Festival, Satellite Art Club, Miami Art Week Art Basel, CDMX, DOC: Paris, FR, Chaos Computer, Washington Square Park and various other public spaces in the city of new york.