Not quite a finissage!
The 5th Istanbul Design Biennial, with the theme Empathy Revisited: Designs for More Than One, enters its final days. Curated by Mariana Pestana with Sumitra Upham and Billie Muraben, the biennial will conclude with a day-long closing event Not auite a finissage! on 24 April 2021 while opening new works to the public at the same time. Co-hosted with the London Design Museum and Het Nieuwe Instituut, the event will present design projects that encourage us to rethink practices of care and civility at this critical moment in time, and to collectively build new systems and structures for reconnecting.
24 April 2021 11:00 - 17:00
The programme will comprise of talks, walks, performances and screenings from an international line-up of designers and artists, including Dele Adeyemo (former research fellow at Het Nieuwe Instituut), Ibiye Camp and Dámaso Randulfe, Black Athena Collective, Counterspace, Linda Schilling Cuellar, Dansbana!, Sophie Krier & Erik Wong, Aslıhan Demirtaş, FRAUD, Ilana Harris-Babou, Ayşenaz Toker and Merve Tuna, Anna Puigjaner--MAIO in collaboration with Alina Abouelenin, BUREAU, Pelin Tan & Vivien Sansour & Luigi Coppola, Orkan Telhan with elii, theOtherDada, TiriLab, Aslı Uludağ, and many more. The full programme and timetable are available here.
The Travelling Academy: In Search of the Pluriverse
With their contribution to Not quite a finissage!, Sophie Krier and Erik Wong anticipate on their upcoming Thirst Walk, a distributed walk and talk with designer Nur Horsanalı, urbanist Yaşar Adnan Adanalı, ecologist and activist Li An Phoa and architects Eva Pfannes & Sylvain Hartenberg (OOZE). Guided by artist Serkan Taycan, the walk will discuss the crucial supply of water in urban nodes, especially in Istanbul where the complex, collective supply of water goes back to pre-Roman times. Water is discussed as commons, as metaphor, as politics: who quenches whose thirst?
Wong and Krier introduce the participants of their upcoming Thirst Walk in four short talks: Thirst Talk #1 with Li An Phoa, Thirst Talk #2 with Nur Horsanalı, Thirst Talk #3 with Eva Pfannes (OOZE) and Thirst Talk #4 with Yaşar Adnan Adanalı.
The Thirst Walk is part of In Search of the Pluriverse, Wong and Krier's (podcast) edition of The Travelling Academy, an initiative of Het Nieuwe Instituut that brings together local and Netherlands-based designers to explore how formal and informal knowledges can reinforce each other in tackling ecological, socio-political and spatial issues. The embassies in each participating country are important partners in this project.
Streaming information
The event will be shared through 5th Istanbul Design Biennial YouTube channel as well as the websites of the London Design Museum and Het Nieuwe Instituut. Click to register.