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.
İKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı said, “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.”
