Arzu Ozkal (she/her/ella) is a Turkish born, San Diego, California based artist, designer, and researcher. Ozkal's practice is committed to fostering collaboration and inclusivity while critically engaging with social and cultural issues.

Ozkal is a founding member of Home Affairs, an interdisciplinary art collective focusing on creative projects about a range of issues impacting women's lives. Since 2011, they have been working together with women from Turkey, Europe, and USA to design platforms of social exchange. Collective received their first design patent for their wheeled museum chair for children, ArtSit™. 

RECENT PROJECTS
Currently, she is collaborating with Millie Chen on SRS (Silk Road Songbook), a socially driven, interdisciplinary, multilingual project that weaves new songs into the land, broadcasting distinct, independent voices on a major ancient Eurasian migration route, while challenging Orientalist exoticism and cultural tourism.

Ozkal's latest limited edition publication series with Tricia Treacy, Situated Between (2017-2019) can be purchased online or at Printed Matter in NYC. Situated Between v.3 won the AIGA 50 Books / 50 Covers award in 2021.
 
BOOKS
Ozkal's latest book, Cabaret Voltaire: Fluxus West, San Diego and Southern California Mail Art co-edited with Mila Waldeck, examines the International Mail Art Movement of the 1960s, focusing on Ferrara Brain Pan's Cabaret Voltaire, a mail art project, established in 1977 in San Diego, California. 
 
She co-edited with Dr. Claudia Pederson, Gün: Women's Networks a DIY book project investigating informal networks and their extension into digital media with the aim of gaining understanding of the sociocultural conditions impacting women's participation in contemporary culture (2013). 
 
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
She has co-curated numerous international exhibitions, such as 17th Annual Dia de la Mujer Invisible Traditions at The Front Arte & Cultura; We The People for San Diego State University; Relief Valve / Subap at New Agrarian Center and Oberlin College - George Jones Farm.

COMMUNITY SERVICE
She has served on the board of several nonprofits in San Diego, CA, including A Reason to Survive (ARTS), a National City-based art center dedicated to providing high-quality arts programming to South Bay youth (2020-2022); Art Produce, a community art and performance space in North Park (2022-2024); and as the education chair of AIGA San Diego Tijuana (2020-2022). Additionally, she has served as an advisor to San Diego Design Week since its inception in 2022.

She wholeheartedly supports the impactful work of these organizations and encourages others to contribute to their missions.