Deniz Başar is an urban planner, theatre researcher, poet, puppet maker, and two-time national award-winning playwright from Turkey. In 2021, she completed her PhD from the Humanities Department at Concordia University, with her study of contemporary Turkish theatre entitled “A Dismissed Heritage: Contemporary Performance in Turkey Defined through Karagöz.” Supported by a FRQSC fellowship, she conducted further research in her fields of study through her postdoctoral work. Her play, Wine and Halva, was professionally staged in May 2024 in English and received with critical acclaim in Montreal, and will be remounted in May 2026 by the original team in Teesri Duniya Theatre. Her collaboratively written play Autumn in New Stockholm will be staged in French in Montreal in the March 2026 theatre season. Currently she is working in Sabancı University as a professional assistant for the Contemporary Turkish History courses. 

İnci Olgun, after her undergraduate education in Architecture, started to work on various fields of spatial research and projects in different scales under the the Urban Design graduate program at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (MSFAU). She completed her doctoral thesis on urban memory and spatial reading. She has carried out research projects, e-publications, workshops, exhibitions, book publications that received grants from national and international funds on natural and artificial systems supporting the built environment and urban design strategies, while participating in many organizations. Olgun has won many awards from national and international competitions in architectural and urban design throughout her career. Since 2001, she has been a project group manager in planning and urban design studios as an Instructor in the Department of City and Regional Planning of MSFAU. As a member of the Design Guidelines team, which is a multidisciplinary platform, Olgun continues to work intensively on sustainability, ecological planning and design at urban and rural scales.