Gökçen Erkılıç

Gökçen Erkılıç is a designer, researcher, and educator whose work investigates coastlines, rivers, seas, oceans, and other hydro-ecological systems as critical sites of environmental, political, social, and computational inquiry. Her research is grounded in the central argument that coastlines are planetary markers and data structures of interwoven dynamics of health, energy, AI, climate, and political systems, while also being personal and hydro-commons across critical geographies.

She directs Coastliner Lab (CLLab), a globally engaged research-creation and mapping practice initiated in Istanbul and now operating across transnational coastal contexts. CLLab combines participatory and counter-mapping, geospatial analysis, AI-assisted cartography, and multimodal data integration to surface situated narratives of water-related conflicts and communities.

Her works have been published, exhibited, and performed on various platforms globally, including oceanspace, Sharjah Biennial, Salt Research, Pera Museum, and the Venice Biennale of Architecture.

She is affiliated with metaLAB at Harvard and the NULab for Digital Humanities and Computational Social Science. She holds a PhD from Istanbul Technical University, earned her master’s degree in Architecture and Landscape Urbanism from Istanbul Bilgi University (2012), and her bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Middle East Technical University in Ankara. She was a visiting researcher at the Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies from 2021 to 2023.

She teaches classes in water-centered design across physical and digital fabrication, information design, mapping, and video making with sound.