5th Istanbul Design Biennial Opens to the Public on 15 October

Image courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial

5th Istanbul Design Biennial
Empathy Revisited: Designs for more than one
October 15, 2020 – November 15, 2020 / April 30, 2021
http://empathyrevisited.iksv.org

Curated by Mariana Pestana with Sumitra Upham and Billie Muraben, Empathy Revisited: Designs for more than one, the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial opened its doors to the public – digitally and physically – on 15 October.

Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) under the sponsorship of VitrA and with the support of Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the biennial will take place in exhibition venues, outdoor spaces in Istanbul and digital platforms. The projects displayed in the exhibition venues will be open to visit until 15 November 2020; while the interventions in the city, research projects and video series will continue to evolve until 30 April 2021, and beyond.

5th Istanbul Design Biennial curator Mariana Pestana said: “This will be a biennial that slowly evolves from October this year until April 2021. In face of the many and constantly shifting challenges and regulations brought about by the pandemic, we devised a programme that rather than resisting or ignoring the current scenario, adapts to it. We propose a biennial that is generative and locally produced, with built-in legacy strategies, developed in dialogue with, and catered for, the citizens of Istanbul. Amidst an acute climate crisis and a global state of social isolation, the biennial invites us to think critically about how we relate to one another and to others, be them human or other bodies – biologic, bacterial, and geologic. 

We want to position design as a mediation tool between us and the world around us, design as a tool to sense the world and its many constituents. And we are interested in asking, what perspectives may this sensing reveal? Does it connect us with elements, matters and living beings that we don’t normally connect with? And does such a connection elicit empathy in us?

Istanbul Design Biennial Director Deniz Ova said: “It is clear that we now need to rethink the formats of all our activities, events, and especially of the biennial itself. Over the years we questioned the biennial format as such and have been experimenting and shaping its methods. The current unrest and constant shifts in paradigms has proven that newer approaches need to be adopted. The 5th Istanbul Design Biennial comes at a turning point when cultural institutions and organisations are struggling to survive and maintain support for the many layers of the cultural infrastructure. In a time as such, it is essential to question how to conserve the importance of our institutions and biennials, while transforming their content and contexts. 

We believe that the biennials are spaces of exception that create awareness and allow knowledge exchange despite all restrictions. In the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial, we aspire to create a place for our audiences to see the world from the eyes of a practitioner working on the urgent issues in the world while using design as a tool for seeing, learning and questioning.”

Speaking on behalf of the biennial’s sponsor VitrA, Eczacıbaşı Building Products CEO Özgen Özkan said: “We’re facing challenges in the fields of health, hygiene and sustainability that, late as it may be, are now at the top of the global agenda. These issues, which the pandemic has brought to the forefront, have been at the centre of VitrA’s innovation efforts for many years. Our new technologies and solutions, and especially our no-touch products, are aimed at improving hygiene. While developing these solutions, our focus is people: We put ourselves in the position of users and try to understand and then develop our designs with their current and future needs in mind.”

5th Istanbul Design Biennial’s opening video, in which Istanbul Design Biennial Director Deniz Ova and the curatorial team Mariana Pestana, Sumitra Upham and Billie Muraben explain the biennial in detail, can be streamed on İKSV’s YouTube channel. Watch here.