Cihan Çakmak was born in Lower Saxony in 1993 and grew up in Worpswede and Bremen. After studying photography at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, with an interim study visit to Lisbon, she enrolled at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts in 2017. There she studied in the class of Prof. Tina Bara and received her diploma in 2021. In 2023, she completed her master student studies, also at the HGB. In 2020, Cihan Çakmak received the Paula Modersohn-Becker Young Talent Award, Worpswede, and in 2023 the ein-blicke Award at the blicke film festival, Bochum. In addition to exhibiting, she speaks in the form of artist talks on current topics and discourses.