Daria Sönmez

Daria Sonmez is an MPhil/PhD researcher in Creative Arts and Cultural Industries in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, supervised by Dr Polly Savage and Dr Heidi Tan. Her doctoral research examines artist residencies as cultural infrastructure, asking how governance shapes their relationship to locality and surrounding publics. Through comparative case studies, she investigates who sets the terms of a residency, how funding shapes its ties to place, and when it becomes part of a locality rather than a prestige project imposed from outside.

Her academic path runs through Silk Road connections and transcultural exchange. Daria trained in global business, international relations, and Korean studies at HSE University and Kyung Hee University, Seoul, writing on Korean modernism and the socio-economic effects of cultural tourism. Her bachelor's thesis examined South Korean Official Development Assistance in sub-Saharan Africa as a tool of cultural production. Her master's research turned to cultural exchange among Europe, the MENA region, and the Asia-Pacific. She publishes on contemporary art, East Asian modernism, the history of textile and print production, and the relationship between contemporary art and antiquity. She is working on an independent study of carpet production and cultural heritage along the Silk Road and in the Gulf.

Daria also works as a curator and cultural strategist. She managed the international programme of the Arts Connected Residency on Türkiye’s Aegean coast, hosting more than 35 international artists, and was invited to the first Bukhara Biennial in Uzbekistan. As Curatorial Director of BENCH, an independent curatorial platform, she develops exhibitions, public programmes and publishing projects with artists from underrepresented regions, and builds partnerships between artists and the private sector. She previously worked with leading galleries in Europe and Türkiye. 

She holds an MA in Art and Cultural Management from Rome Business School, awarded with highest distinction, and a dual BA from HSE University, where she graduated as valedictorian, and Kyung Hee University. She works in English, Korean, Turkish, and Russian, and at SOAS serves as Department Representative for History of Art and Archaeology and as a Board Member of the Research Students' Association.

• Artist residencies and cultural governance
• Creative industries and community participation 
• Transculturalism
• Silk Road geographies
• East Asian modernism
• East Asia–sub-Saharan Africa relations
• Material culture