UMUT VEDAT

For “feeling human” Umut Vedat, traveled around the world to witness by his own eyes, and collaborated with several local and international NGOs such as Roots&Routes, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Heinrich Böll Foundation, IGLYO, Armenian Heritage Foundation, La Via Campesina, Support to Life, European Climate Foundation; as a documentarist working on the topics of discrimination, minority situations, cultural interactions, relief aid, and environmental subjects. Walking on the path of the documentary, Umut accessed an intense world of expressions, forwarding the emotions he is observing. His photos and articles as a photojournalist have been published via local&world-wide media such as Guardian, Le Monde, Sierra, Agos, Bianet. Umut had several solo exhibitions in Istanbul, Yerevan, Tbilisi, and also contributed to several exhibitions around the world such as Krong Siem Reap, San Francisco, Bordeaux. Prior to photojournalism, Umut Vedat worked as a creative director in commercial industry but quit this field at the end of 2011 in order to be able to work independently.  During this time Umut Vedat as well-realized how dance and music shorts are very suitable tools for expressing individual emotions. Umut had given a TEDx speech regarding cultural interactions with empathy, and filmed several dance and experimental narrative short films. Umut Vedat directed a feature documentary, Dark Atlas (2016), which is an activist manifesto aimed to create awareness at the grassroots. In 2020, he conducted a multi-disciplinary light performance at ÖÖvalgel Light festival in Parnu, Estonia. He obtained Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Cinematography presented by a consortium of partners made up of the National Film School at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland (IADT), The University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest, Hungary (SZFE), and the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University, Estonia, (BFM).