bio | Meriç Öner is an architect, researcher and exhibition maker. Following a period of professional practice, Meriç Öner was commissioned as exhibitions coordinator at the 2005 UIA World Architecture Congress in Istanbul. Later at Garanti Galeri, she assisted exhibitions on design and architecture, and edited publications on the city. Öner simultaneously supported the layered design processes of Salt, a research-based cultural institution, ahead of its opening in 2011 in Istanbul. As founding associate director of research and programmes, she defined Salt’s critical approach to the study and presentation of built environments. Her queries on material culture in recent history initiated local and international conversations, facilitating public displays of multiple narratives and expandable timelines via exhibitions, workshops, talks, and film programmes including Becoming Istanbul and 90 (2011), Modern Essays 4: SALON (2012), Summer Homes: Claiming The Coast (2014), One and the Many (2016), Commissioners’ Exhibition (2017), CLIMAVORE: Seasons Made to Drift – Cooking Sections (2021), and Thursday Cinema (2014–ongoing). As director in 2017–2021, Öner focused on amplifying the institution’s potential as a co-learning agency. She advanced the dissemination of the digitised Salt Research archives and activated the Office of Useful Art in partnership with the Asociación de Arte Útil. Öner structured long-term collaborations with local institutions and universities, in particular with Kadir Has University, that led to the acquisition and digitisation of the archive of the Istanbul Encyclopedia (1945–1975) – an incomplete queer publication about the city – by the late historian and author Reşad Ekrem Koçu, due for online access in 2023. She currently practices space-, exhibition- and programmemaking, and provides consultancy on cultural strategies internationally at Meriç Öner Research and Design based in Istanbul.
