Meltem Şahin is an artist and designer. She completed her master's degree in illustration at MICA, USA with a Fulbright scholarship. Her works have been exhibited in more than 30 exhibitions, her animations have been shown in 7 countries and her gifs have been viewed more than 290 million times. She curated PMS, one of the first augmented reality exhibitions in Türkiye.
Her work with AI technology has been selected for the permanent collection of the National Gallery in London. Apple, Meta, and Giphy are some of the companies she has worked with. Her work seeks to heal, tell stories, and challenge social norms. Centering her practice on womxn’s and LGBTQIA+ rights, she explores themes of resilience, identity, and empowerment, reframing history from a feminist perspective and questioning rigid hierarchies. Through these explorations, she opens new ways of seeing femininity, power, and recovery, encouraging viewers to consider alternative perspectives on these concepts. Growing up in Türkiye, she was shaped by both Eastern and Western ideals: Western notions of beauty and perfection intersect with an Eastern appreciation for imperfection and the passage of time. Over the last decade, her focus on gender and women’s rights has drawn from Eastern history, mythology, feminism, and queer theory. Reimagining ancient stories through inclusivity and diversity has become central to her practice. Employing a visual language that challenges superficial ideals and hierarchies rooted in race, social status, and sexual orientation, she bridges Eastern and Western aesthetics, sparking conversations around human rights and social justice.
