Merve Elveren is a curator based in Istanbul. Between August 2011 and September 2018 Elveren was part of the founding team of Research and Programs at SALT, a non-profit research institution located in Istanbul and Ankara. In her role as Senior Programmer at SALT she co-curated A Promised Exhibition (2013) – the first comprehensive survey of Gülsün Karamustafa’s works.
In 2015, Elveren contributed to L’Internationale’s five-year program The Uses of Art-The Legacy of 1848 and 1989 with the exhibition How did we get here at SALT Beyoğlu and Galata, from which a selection of works and documents travelled to Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. In April 2018 Elveren’s two-year-long project Continuity Error—the first major exhibition of Aydan Murtezaoğlu and Bülent Şangar, prominent figures in shaping the emerging contemporary art scene in 1990s’ Turkey, opened at SALT Beyoğlu. Independent projects include the co-production of Köken Ergun’s film Ashura (2013) and Volkan Aslan’s solo exhibition Shoot Me! Don’t turn me over! (Pi Artworks, 2018). Most recently, Elveren initiated an independent group of women art professionals in order to organize temporary exhibitions and public events for the benefit of Women’s Library and Information Centre Foundation, founded in 1990.