4th Istanbul Design Biennial Opens to the Public on 22 September 2018

Image courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial

4th Istanbul Design Biennial
A School of Schools
September 22 – November 4, 2018
http://aschoolofschools.iksv.org

The 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, titled A School of Schools and curated by Jan Boelen with associate curators Nadine Botha and Vera Sacchetti, opens to the public on 22 September 2018.

Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by VitrA, the biennial brings together projects from more than 200 interdisciplinary practitioners from across the globe. For six weeks, designers, architects, artists, theoreticians and several others will converge in Turkey’s cultural capital to explore the many dimensions of design and learning. The 4th Istanbul Design Biennial can be visited free of charge until 4 November 2018.

Six of the city’s most iconic cultural institutions in the Beyoğlu district – Akbank Sanat, Yapı Kredi Culture Centre, Arter, Pera Museum, SALT Galata, Studio-X Istanbul – will transform into ‘schools’ where new ideas in relation to expanded notions of design and its role in contemporary culture are explored.

Press Conference

The press conference of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial was held on Thursday, 20 September at Yapı Kredi Culture Centre with the participation of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial curator Jan Boelen and associate curators Vera Sacchetti and Nadine Botha, İKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı, along with Istanbul Design Biennial Director Deniz Ova.

İKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı stated in the press conference: “Today, from the economy to culture and the arts, sustainable development to technology, design has a key role to play in many areas. It’s possible to say that the future will be shaped by people and institutions that effectively use design-focused methods and tools. The internalization of a design culture and search for design-based solutions that improve life are critically important not just for individuals but for the future of our world as well. In this regard, we truly believe that the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial will also contribute to raising design awareness in our country. As in previous biennials, I am confident that this one will also inspire all our visitors and I would like to extend our warmest gratitude to all invaluable biennial supporters for making the Istanbul Design Biennial possible.”

“By naming the design biennial A School of Schools”, curator Jan Boelen explained, “we sought to go beyond the traditional ‘school-as-institution’ connotation. Everything and everywhere is a school, and every single interaction we have with design is pedagogical. Ninety-nine years after the Bauhaus, the design discipline and the world are very different places, while design education has mostly remained the same. And yet, education traditionally allowed for spaces of exception where experimentation and new ideas can be tried and tested. Can a biennial emulate these spaces? A School of Schools manifests as a set of dynamic learning formats encouraging creative production, sustainable collaboration, and social connection. We are interested in design as pedagogy and in what can we learn from design and designing. We would like to start a discussion on design, education and design education. We would like it to generate more questions than answers. This places the responsibility on each of us to become agents of our own education.”

The press conference was followed by the experiential performance by designer and researcher, Vivien Tauchman.

A School of Schools

A School of Schools is an educational web of design strategies for learning, and learning strategies for design. The answers we need to address the world’s constant sense of crisis are not being delivered by the tried-and-tested design and education models. With the age-old logic of material abundance and information scarcity inverted, we need new ideas and knowledge to address previously unimaginable complexities. Our minds must be liberated from the preconceived outcomes with which we have been schooled. Not knowing is the first step to learning something new.

By spreading the biennial along a walking route of around 3 km, A School of Schools highlights what we all intuitively know: learning is not limited to a single building at stipulated times through predetermined interactions. New ideas happen anywhere, anytime. We gain knowledge from family, friends, neighbours and strangers. We are schooled by our built environment and the tools we have developed to navigate it. We are all learners in the city as school, with streets for corridors, cultural institutions for classrooms, and – instead of siloed subjects – multi-disciplinary complexities: Unmaking, Currents, Earth, Scales, Time and Digestion.

A School of Schools does not prescribe answers. The biennial offers a space of exception in which possibilities can be studied and propositions tested without the restriction of generating predetermined outcomes. Such a process-oriented approach results in an active site for knowledge creation, while the temporal and spatial limits of the biennial are stretched by the educational web that spans an exhibition, a public programme, book, website and satellite events. Surfacing the expanded field of design, A School of Schools goes beyond pragmatic solutionism to constellate new ideas that can provoke doubt, curiosity and shifts in perspective. What if the school we need now is a personal attitude of questioning and figuring out?

Schools, participants and projects

The exhibition furniture and scenography for the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial is developed as a collaboration between architect Aslı Çiçek and product designer Lukas Wegwerth. Using Wegwerth’s open-source system III+1 and Çicek’s vast experience in exhibition design, the scenography of the Biennial is extended over six diverse venues, bringing them together as they play host to the biennial’s main exhibition.

At Akbank Sanat, Unmaking School interrogates the complex, ever-changing relationship between humans and machines to emphasize human creativity as a unique dynamo that drives innovation. Projects include an AI-personalised avatar that can be used for self-growth and an installation envisioning a future in which humans are liberated from labour.

Participants: Amandine David, Camilo Oliveira, Ersin Altın, Burçak Özlüdil, Augustus Wendell, Amy K. Hoover, FABB and contributors, Kerim Bayer, Martina Muzi, Matylda Krzykowski, Annika Frye and students, Nur Horsanalı, Ottonie von Roeder, Stigmergy•Family•Studio•, Studio Makkink & Bey and contributors

At Yapı Kredi Culture Centre, Currents School investigates the multitude of connections and networks of exchange that often exist unseen or unnoticed, with projects working to make these systems visible through methods such as a live radio programme recorded on the streets of Istanbul exploring how slang is transmitted, and a Syrian travel guide presenting narratives of those who have fled.

Participants: åbäke, Aformal Academy ve ARK.WORLD, Ana Peñalba, CMP Office, Ebru Kurbak, Irene Posch, So Kanno, Hannah Perner-Wilson, Mika Satomi, Farzin Lotfi-Jam and Mark Wasiuta, ONAGÖRE, Radioee.net and Pub Radio, Studio Folder, Taeyoon Choi

At Arter, Earth School questions and subverts the prioritisation of capitalist growth over the planet’s natural resources to suggest an alternative – less fatalistic – future, with projects harnessing algae’s potential to replace non-biodegradable plastics, and investigating the impact of water shortages in underdeveloped countries.

Participants: Andrea Karch, ARVID & MARIE, Atelier Luma Algae Lab, Cihad Caner, Demystification Committee, Design Displacement Group, Disarming Design from Palestine, Fahmy Shahin, Human Rights Foundation, Janna Ullrich, João Roxo, Lukas Engelhardt, Mary Ponomareva, Meeus van Dis, N55, Navine G. Khan-Dossos, New South (Maya Nemeta, Meriem Chabani), Nina Wiesnagrotzki, Sissel Marie Tonn, SO? Mimarlık and contributors, SulSolSal, Tattfoo Studio, Theo Deutinger, Thomas Pausz

At Pera Museum, Scales School interrogates established norms, standards and values, such as quantifying value in numeric and monetary terms, to highlight their absurdity and arbitrariness. One installation explores whether our standards of perfection are cultural or biological as designer babies become a conceivable reality, while another asks if centimetres and inches are obsolete as measuring units in the age of pixels and vectors.

Participants: AATB, Ali Murat Cengiz, Alix Gallet, Aslı Çiçek, Bogomir Doringer, Bora Hong, Broomberg&Chanarin, Can Altay, Cansu Cürgen & Avşar Gürpınar, ECAL X MACGUFFIN MAGAZINE, Fictional Journal Collective, Jamie Allen, Judith Seng, Juliette Pépin, Legrand Jäger, Lukas Wegwerth, Mark Henning, Noortje van Eekelen, Pınar Yoldaş, Possible Bodies Collective, SCN, Selim Süme, Unfold

At SALT Galata, Time School* offers possibilities for manipulating time in a world increasingly dictated by standardized systems, in order to be more present, right here, right now. From a participatory project involving 20 hand-weavers in different time-zones and a clock that re-centres attention to our bodies, to a video installation that encourages participants to stop, rest and sleep, designers demonstrate alternative understandings of time.

Participants: Commonplace Studio, Jesse Howard and Tim Knapen, Danilo Correale, Ecole Mondiale, Emelie Röndahl and contributors, Helga Schmid, Nelly Ben Hayoun, Teis De Greve

*Time School is coproduced by Z33 – House for contemporary art, Hasselt (Belgium) and curated by Ils Huygens (Z33)

At Studio-X Istanbul, Digestion School redirects focus from the brain to the gut as a site of cognition, to rediscover indigenous cultural knowledge and emphasize the importance of communal and embodied approaches to living and learning. Projects include an exploration into traditional medicines from Indonesia, and a study on the social, cultural and anthropological significance of the marketplace.

Participants: EAT ART collective, Bakudapan, Carlos Monleón, Chick Strand, Gamze Gündüz, Güher Tan, Tangör Tan, Gökhan Mura, Jenna Sutela, Lifepatch, Lorenzo Cirrincione, Jennifer Teets, Lorena Ancona, Mae-ling Lokko, Nana Ofori-Atta Ayim ve Selassie Ataditka, Gustavo Crembil, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Zin

Please visit http://aschoolofschools.iksv.org/en/#section-journallink for exclusive interviews with the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial artists made during the biennial preparations and throughout the biennial.