From the Bench is SFCB's series of short studio tours with friends near and far. From favorite tools to works in progress, you never know what you'll learn about from these amazing artists.
Beldan Sezen (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1967) explores themes of war, confinement, and human resilience through minimalist works and artists’ books. Her practice sits at the intersection of memory, identity, and collective experience.
In 2015, she was awarded a Global Arts Fund by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice for her exploration of survival, freedom, and possibility regarding Queer bodies. This support culminated in her guerrilla art project, BUTCH IT UP!, in Istanbul, Turkey. She also received a "Book as Art" development grant from the City of Amsterdam in 2018 and was awarded the 2022 Herzog August Library Artists’ Book Prize for her "walk-in book," Spielraum.
As a curator of artists’ books, Sezen is a member of Booklyn Inc., an artist-run non-profit organization specializing in book art and social justice. Additionally, she co-founded Cypher, a digital comics magazine spotlighting the bold lives and perilous work of global human rights defenders.
Beldan lives and works in New York and Amsterdam.
images shown from left: All Right, Death (2025) and right: Kitchen Table Diaries, Vol. 3
Please visit our YouTube page to see our past tours, previously also known as Shelter in Studio.
Thursday, March 5, 2026
12:30 PM (Pacific Time)
This is a free online event.
Registration will close at noon on the day of the event. The zoom link will be emailed at 10:30am Pacific time (two hours before the start time).