Her work focuses on migrant and diasporic cinema in Europe, transnational cinema, experimental and avant-garde cinema, screen-based art, site-specific art, and performance. She received a B.A. in Cultural Studies from Sabanci University, Istanbul and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Film & Media Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her book, Mobility and Migration in Film and Moving Image Art: Cinema Beyond Europe (Routledge 2016), examines cinematic and artistic representations of migration and mobility in Europe since the 1990s. Bayraktar’s most recent research project explores the intersections between artistic practice and global environmental and social issues such as climate change and mass displacement resulting from neoliberal capitalist practices around the world.