4th Istanbul Design Biennial – A School of Schools
A Biennial about Design as Learning, and Learning as Design.

A School of Schools is a multi-platform biennale that will use, test, and revise a variety of educational strategies to reflect on the role of design, knowledge, and global connectedness in contemporary Istanbul and beyond.

The amount of information in the world is more than doubling every two years. People know more than ever before. Lifelong learning is touted as the only way to keep a job and keep your head. Chalk and talk, and reciting multiplication tables has no chance against the animated distractions in our pockets. Meanwhile, the machines themselves have started learning too. What will be left for humans to do and which mental faculties remain irreplaceable are hot topics. Is it time to go back to school – and redesign it?

Alternative design education initiatives have consistently provided a brave space for experimentation and new knowledge, from the Bauhaus to Black Mountain College, and from Global Tools to the Sigma Group. These initiatives have not only helped design evolve, question itself and push its own boundaries, but also education and learning in general. Not only concerned with design, many of these experiments have also tested alternative ways of living, working, and connecting with each other and ourselves. Through this process-based experiential research, new manifestations, meanings, and implications of design have surfaced.

Today, design has become a form of enquiry, power and agency. It has become vaster than the world and life itself, permeating all layers of everyday life. As design becomes pervasive, the discipline can no longer claim to offer solutions to everything. In fact, the one-size-fits-all approach of many universal global systems is showing its cracks and exclusions. Similarly, design education – where the field and its practitioners have traditionally been reviewed and refined – now finds itself navigating new constraints and challenges regarding relevance, adaptability, accessibility, and finances.

As a space for critical reflection on design established in a historically rich context, the Istanbul Design Biennial offers the opportunity to question the very production and replication of design and its education. In 2018, the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial builds on the legacy of previous editions, in order to reinvent itself and become a productive process-orientated platform for education and design to research, experiment and learn in and from the city and beyond.

Titled A School of Schools, the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial will stretch both the space and time of the traditional design event, manifesting as a flexible year-long programme within which to respond to global acceleration, generating alternative methodologies, outputs and forms of design and education. A School of Schools manifests as a set of dynamic learning formats encouraging creative production, sustainable collaboration, and social connection. Exploring six themes, the learning environment is a context of empowerment, reflection, sharing and engagement, providing reflexive responses to specific situations.

Can the biennial use, question and reframe previously tried-and-tested education models – from the museum-as-encyclopedia to the laboratory, the studio and the academy – to create a setting for meaningful dialogue and design? Can design itself be a brave space for people to share their knowledge and ignorance, their experience and curiosity?

Engaging multigenerational, transdisciplinary practitioners from Turkey and abroad, A School of Schools brings together old and new knowledge, academic and amateur, professional and personal, focusing on the process as much as the outcomes. Together, agents in this complex and ambitious ecosystem will create new knowledge, search for alternatives to implemented systems, and with radical diversity, push the boundaries of the design discipline.

PARTICIPANT LIST

Biennial participants include;

AATB

Åbäke

Aformal Academy & ARK.WORLD

Can Altay

Ersin Altın, Burçak Özlüdil, Augustus Wendell, Amy K. Hoover

Burak Arıkan

ARK.AMSTERDAM (Roosje Klap & Pauline Le Pape)

Arvid & Marie

Bakudapan

Kerim Bayer

Merve Bedir

Broomberg & Chanarin

Cihad Caner

Ali Murat Cengiz

Taeyoon Choi

Lorenzo Cirrincione, Jennifer Teets, Lorena Ancona

CMP OFFICE

Commonplace Studio, Jesse Howard and Tim Knapen

Danilo Correale

Cansu Cürgen & Avşar Gürpınar

Aslı Çiçek

Çukurcuma Okuma Kulübü / Reading Club

Amandine David

Demystification Committee

DESIS Felsefe Konuşmaları

Design Displacement Group

Theo Deutinger

Meeus van Dis

Disarming Design from Palestine

Bogomir Doringer

Dpr-barcelona

Eat Art Collective

ECAL x MacGuffin

Ecole Mondiale

Noortje van Eekelen

Lukas Engelhardt

FABB

Fictional Journal Collective

FRAME research Group (Remco Roes, Carla Swerts, Tom Lambeens, Griet Moors)

Annika Frye 


Alix Gallet

Gerçeklik Araştırma Grubu, Tasarım Laboratuvarı, Koç Üniversitesi

Teis De Greve

Gamze Gündüz, Güher Tan, Tangör Tan

Gökçe Gürçay

Ineke Hans

Lisa Hartje Moura, Pascal Rousseau, Noam Toran

Adam Harvey & Anastasia Kubrak

Nelly Ben Hayoun

Mark Henning

Esmé Hofman

Bora Hong

Nur Horsanalı

Housing the Human: Artem Kitaev (KOSMOS Architects), Mae-Ling Lokko, Simone C Niquille, Lucia Tahan, Dasha Tsapenko

Human Rights Foundation

Alexandre Humbert

IASPIS Urgent Pedagogies Symposium (Sepake Angiama, Markus Bader, Magnus Ericson, Joseph Grima, Sandi Hilal, Onkar Kular, Peter Lang, Tor Lindstrand, Pelin Tan, Merve Gül Özokcu)

Ils Huygens (Z33)

So Kanno

Andrea Karch

Navine G. Khan-Dossos

Roosje Klap

Rauf Kösemen

Ebru Kurbak

Matylda Krzykowski

Naho Kubota

Onkar Kular

LAB OF LABs: Professor Jussi Parikka, University of Southampton, Visiting Assistant Professor Andreas Treske, Chair Department of Communication and Design, I. D. Bilkent University, Dr. Faculty Member, PhD Simge Hough, Bilgi University, Jamie Allen, Ege Berensel, Ebru Kurbak

Landskip

Peter Lang

Legrand Jäger

Lifepatch

Mae-ling Lokko, Nana Ofori-Atta Ayim, Selassie Ataditka, Gustavo Crembil

Farzin Lotfi-Jam & Mark Wasiuta

LUCA School of Arts

Pedro Neves Marques

Margarida Mendes

Alexandra Midal

Carlos Monleón

Gökhan Mura

Martina Muzi

N55

New South

Camilo Oliveira

ONAGÖRE (Okay Karadayılar & Ali Taptık)

Şevket Pamuk

Parasitic Okuma Kulübü / Reading Club

Thomas Pausz

Ana Peñalba

Juliette Pépin

Hannah Perner-Wilson

Shailoh Philips

Mary Ponomareva

Irene Posch

Possible Bodies Collective

RADIOEE.NET AND PUB RADIO

Alice Rawsthorn

Livia Rezende

Ottonie Von Roeder

João Roxo

Emelie Röndahl

Mika Satomi

Helga Schmid

SCN

Judith Seng

Fahmy Shahin

SO?

Stigmergy·Family·Studio

Chick Strand

Studio Folder (Marco Ferrari, Elisa Pasqual, Pietro Leoni)

Studio Makkink & Bey

SulSolSal

Jenna Sutela

Selim Süme

Aslıhan Şenel

Gülsün Tanyeli

Tattfoo Studio

Teaching Lies (Jamie Allen, Selçuk Artut, Rebekka Kiesewetter, Paolo Patelli, Donato Ricci, Benoît Verjat, Michael Edward Young)

Jennifer Teets & Lorenzo Cirrincione

Sera Tolgay

Sissel Marie Tonn

Joris Van Tubergen

Dr. Ahmet Uhri  

Janna Ullrich

Unfold

University of the Underground

Henriëtte Waal (LUMA) & Studio Klarenbeek & Dros

Lukas Wegwerth

Nina Wiesnagrotzki

Pınar Yoldaş

İpek Yürekli

Peter Zin

ABOUT ISTANBUL DESIGN BIENNIAL

Taking place since 2012, Istanbul Design Biennial aims to bring together a diverse cross section of design ideas once every two years, exploring a wide range of fields concerning design. Seeding ideas and fostering dialogue and intersections within the creative and academic community, the biennial operates on a network of national and international collaborations with cultural agents, institutions, universities and companies. Using the city as a dynamic space for projects, actions and interventions, the biennial tackles global design problems, brings the notion of design into scrutiny, stimulates critical debate, foregrounds underexplored or overlooked aspects of society and prompts further investigation into and exchange about emerging conditions of the world. In addition to its biennial exhibition and various activities, Istanbul Design Biennial seeks to ensure a long, deep and interdisciplinary conversation that will help rethink the question of design by multiplying the number of voices and assembling an inspirational design archive. Committed to design as a tool for understanding its complex role in today’s society, the biennial as a progressive discussion platform is in permanent transformation.

Istanbul Design Biennial is organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV).

ISTANBUL FOUNDATION FOR CULTURE AND ARTS (IKSV)

Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) is a non-profit cultural institution that was founded in 1973. The general objectives of the Foundation are: to make Istanbul one of the world’s foremost capitals of culture and the arts; to create continuous interaction between national and universal values and traditional and contemporary values via culture and the arts; and to contribute actively to the development of cultural policies.

IKSV was organising a single Istanbul Festival in the 70s, a festival that presented examples of different cultural and artistic disciplines. Over time, groups of events from different disciplines evolved into distinct festivals and biennials. Today IKSV organises the Istanbul Festivals of Music, Film, Theatre and Jazz, as well as the Istanbul Biennial, the Istanbul Design Biennial, Leyla Gencer Voice Competition, autumn film week Filmekimi and one-off events throughout the year. The Foundation hosts cultural and artistic events at its performance venue Salon, located at the Nejat Eczacıbaşı Building. IKSV also organises the Pavilion of Turkey at la Biennale di Venezia and coordinates an artist residency programme at Cité International des Arts, France. Furthermore, IKSV conducts studies and drafts reports with the aim of contributing to cultural policy development.

TEAM

SPONSORS

Design Biennial Sponsor

İKSV Founding Sponsor

İKSV Official Sponsors

Theme Sponsors

Workshop Sponsor

Panel Sponsor

Design Walks Sponsor

Special Project Sponsor

Contributing Corporations

Insurance Sponsor

Service Sponsors

Contributing Institutions

Venue Supporters

Press Sponsors

TV Sponsors

Magazine Sponsors

Radio Sponsors

We acknowledge their kind support towards the promotion of Istanbul Design Biennial.

CONTACT

T: +90 212 334 07 00
E: TasarimBienali@iksv.org

PRESS MATERIALS

Click for photos
Click for videos

Click for the biography of Jan Boelen, 4th Istanbul Design Biennial Curator
Click for the biography of Deniz Ova, Istanbul Design Biennial Director

"Jan Boelen Wants to Shake Up Design Education" - Metropolis
"A School of Schools is a safe space to create new knowledge" - Domus 
"Jan Boelen and Deniz Ova Discuss the Future of Design Education" - ArchDaily

PRESS RELEASES

4th Istanbul Design Biennial's curator announced.
4th Istanbul Design Biennial announces concept and open call.
4th Istanbul Design Biennial announces its opening programme.
4th Istanbul Design Biennial at 2018 Milan Design Week.
Participants announced for the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial.

ARCHIVE

3rd Istanbul Design Biennial (2016) – Are We Human?
2nd Istanbul Design Biennial (2014) – The Future Is Not What It Used To Be
Istanbul Design Biennial (2012) – Imperfection

CONTACT

T: +90 212 334 07 00
E: media@iksv.org
Funda Küçükyılmaz at Flint Istanbul: funda.kucukyilmaz@flint-culture.com
Emily Saunders at Flint London: emily.saunders@flint-culture.com