Can Altay has been addressing the built environment through his investigations and propositions on the politics of everyday life, public space, urban ecologies and artistic action. He has worked extensively on the notion of “display” and designed exhibitions that incorporate artworks, research and social encounters. Altay often produces “settings” that open themselves to common use and act as sites of collective production. His investigations also appear, at times, as complex document-based installations and sculptural and image-based works.

With projects in public spaces ranging from open recording studio spaces to usable sculptures and networked objects, Altay’s works have also been exhibited at institutions such as Walker Art Center, PS1 MoMA, Hessel Museum of Art Bard College, ZKM, MAXXI, Artists Space, Van Abbe Museum, SALT and in solo shows in London, Berlin, Rome, Istanbul, Bolzano, Utrecht and Bristol. Altay participated twice in the Istanbul Biennial. Other biennials in which his work was shown include Havana, Busan, Gwangju, Marrakech, Yinchuan, Çanakkale, Taipei and Thessaloniki.

At Istanbul Bilgi University, Altay worked as the head of the Department of Interior Design, teaching design studio courses and seminars, incorporating the theory and practice of space-making and its impact on society. Before this, Altay was the head of the Department of Industrial Design, where he established a critical curriculum based on his experiences in contemporary art, architecture and the urban context. His students make work that challenges the norm, especially with regards to contingencies of locatedness and production methods in design education. Together with students and graduates, he co-authored publications on topics such as anonymous design, queering objects and hybrid technologies.

A recipient of an Individual Research Grant from the Graham Foundation and keynote speaker at the Architectural Humanities Research Association’s international conferences, Altay gave lectures, ran studio crits and held workshops on art, design and architecture in many international institutions. He is also the host and producer of Ahali Conversations with Can Altay, a podcast that focuses on the future of cultural production and its spaces.