Cİ DEMİ (1986) lives and works in İstanbul.
He studied electronics and Italian literature, but never actually graduated from either of them. He 'discovered' photography later in his life, in 2015; documented house concerts of İstanbul for Sofar Sounds and did photo/videojournalism for 140journos SO up until 2018.
As an Istanbulite, he has adopted İstanbul as the backdrop of his stories. He is constantly looking for the peculiar and the absurd in İstanbul, creating a visual vocabulary of his city through both fiction and non-fiction stories. He considers himself to be 'obsessed' by the idea of a doomsday scenario taking place in his city.
His works have been exhibited at ‘A Pillar of Smoke’, Les Rencontres d’Arles / Jimei x Arles International Photography Festival, Xiamen / Galerie Paris-Beijing, Paris (2018); ‘Non-manifesto’, Fotoistanbul (2017) and ‘Postcards from Tarlabaşı’, Pasaj, İstanbul (2017). He was shortlisted for the 212 Photography İstanbul competition (2021).
His works have been published in publications like L'Œil de la Photographie (2017), GUP Magazine (2017), Fabrika Zine (2018), VSCO (2019), Istanbul Art News (2019), Broad Magazine (2021), Kaleydoskop (2021), Aint–Bad (2021) among many others and in a photo book titled ‘Lila/c’ (collaboration with 140journos SO, 2017).
As a self-taught photographer, he is inspired by horror stories and many paintings from various eras. Vibrant but eerie colours derived from '70s giallos can be considered one of his work's visual characteristics. He works as a copywriter by day.
He is an affiliate of PLATFORM by GAPO.
