London-based, Portuguese architect and curator Mariana Pestana has been named as the curator of the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial, which will be held between 26 September – 8 November 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), the Biennial has been taking place since 2012, aiming to bring together a diverse cross section of design ideas once every two years, exploring a wide range of fields concerning design.

The 5th edition of Istanbul Design Biennial will be curated by Mariana Pestana, who is the third woman architect curating the Istanbul Design Biennial, after Beatriz Colomina with Mark Wigley for the 3rd edition of Istanbul Design Biennial and Zoë Ryan for the 2nd edition of Istanbul Design Biennial.

Pestana, who works between Porto and London, is one of the co-founders of The Decorators, an interdisciplinary practice that makes collaborative public realm interventions and cultural programmes. Pestana's personal interest lies in critical social practice and the role of fiction in re-imagining futures for an age marked by technological progress and an ecological crisis. 

Having previously worked as a curator at the Department of Architecture, Design and Digital at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), Pestana recently co-curated the exhibitions titled The Future Starts Hereat the V&A (2018) and ArkDes – Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design (2019), Eco Visionaries: Art and Architecture After the Anthropoceneat MAAT (2018), Eco Visionaries: Towards an Interspecies Futureat Matadero (2019), and a third iteration of the latter, which will open at The Royal Academy in November 2019. She was also the curator of The Real and Other Fictions, which was exhibited in 2013 under Close, Closer, the third edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, and This Time Tomorrow, the V&A display at the World Economic Forum 2016 in Davos. At the moment she is curating Fiction Practice, the Young Curators Lab for the Porto Design Biennale 2019.

Pestana’s academic career has led her to teach at institutions such as Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Arts, and Royal College of Arts. She holds a PhD in Architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture.

"Mariana Pestana’s passionate approach will be beneficial to the biennial in many ways, and her critical reflections on contemporary issues and inquiries into fictional futures are quite intriguing. We believe that she will put all her soul into turning this edition into a memorable one, and relish the opportunity to extend the collaborative approach of the Istanbul Design Biennial," said Istanbul Design Biennial’s Advisory Board.

The 5th Istanbul Design Biennial Advisory Board members are Jan Boelen, curator of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial and newly appointed rector of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, senior curator at ArkDes – Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, Selva Gürdoğan, partner at SUPERPOOL – International Multidisciplinary Design Studio, Catherine Ince, curator of the V&A East project and Amelie Klein, independent curator and writer.

The conceptual framework of the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial will be announced soon. Take a look at WAC's previous coverage about the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial curated by Jan Boelen. 

Top image: Mariana Pestana, image © Daniel Oduntan

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