Özge Dîlan Arslan

Biography

^{Özge Dîlan Arslan (b. 1994, İstanbul) is an artist-researcher and curator based in Tkarón:to/Toronto. Her interdisciplinary practice centers on printmaking, publishing, and archival research, approaching imprint as both a material process and a living archive for engaging memory, place, and diasporic and ecological histories.

Arslan is the founder of ASTAR Editions ¹, an artist-run publishing collective. Her practice has involved long-term collaboration with The Asian Canadian Living Archive (TACLA), including the publication Bodies of Knowledge ², as well as research and archival work alongside the Studio for Media Activism and Critical Thought and SKETCH Working Arts. From 2017 to 2021, Arslan founded and directed Diaspora Express ³, a Southwest Asian and North African art collective focused on community-led exhibitions and cultural programming. Her curatorial projects include Threads of Resistance (2022) ⁴ and Changing the Current (2020) ⁵.

Arslan holds a joint Master of Arts in Communication and Culture from Toronto Metropolitan University and York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Media Studies from Carleton University. She is currently a candidate in the Master of Visual Studies (Studio) program at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.}

ASTAR Editions is a publishing platform founded by Arslan in 2025, dedicated to experimental literary and visual work. Operating through collaborative and relational modes of production, ASTAR brings together artists, writers, editors, and designers to develop projects that integrate literature, sound, and material culture, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and decolonial approaches to storytelling. Its inaugural project, Sound as Imprint, is an ongoing collaborative initiative exploring sound, memory, and place through experimental narrative and form, supported by the Toronto Arts Council.

Bodies of Knowledge (2022) is a publication developed with The Asian Canadian Living Archive that brings together media artworks by Asian Canadian artists, critical commentary, and community-held narratives. The project explores ethical, non-extractive approaches to archiving and community-engaged knowledge production and was supported by the Ontario Arts Council.

Diaspora Express (2017–2021) was a Toronto-based Southwest Asian and North African art collective founded and directed by Arslan. The collective provided platforms for SWANA creatives through exhibitions, workshops, performances, artist profiles, and community programming, using the metaphor of a moving train to reflect diasporic mobility and the significance of Toronto’s rail system.

Threads of Resistance (2022) was a textile arts exhibition co-curated by Arslan at SKETCH Working Arts, engaging the organization’s lived histories through material and archival practices. Featuring works employing embroidery, weaving, and textile-based storytelling, the exhibition foregrounded craft as a site of care and intergenerational knowledge transmission.

Changing the Current (2020) was an interdisciplinary exhibition and conference curated by Arslan as part of Intersection | Cross-Sections, presented across York University and Toronto Metropolitan University. The project asked how artistic and scholarly practices might interrupt normalized modes of seeing and knowing, creating space for perspectives routinely marginalized or erased within institutional discourse.