First exhibition images and details have been released for the 4th edition of Istanbul Design Biennial, curated by Jan Boelen with Vera Sacchetti and Nadine Botha, Associate Curators, under the theme of "A School of Schools."

Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), this year's Biennial will explore different norms of design education as a transdisciplinary and experimental base, testing and revising a variety of educational strategies to reflect on the role of design, knowledge, and global connectedness in contemporary Istanbul and beyond.

Currents schools created by Zurich-based Offshore Studio. The studio created visual materials and brand identity of the 4th edition of Istanbul Design Biennial.

Set to be opened on September 22, 2018, World Architecture Community gives a sneak preview of the installations and details, showing how the Biennial is being shaped, while the Biennial preparations are still underway.

In this sneak preview, a food study group Bakudapan shows its sketchy models with kitchen tools on three panels, while artist and designer Carlos Monleón's installation gives a clue on multitude of sensations via innards. On the one hand, artist Peter Zin hangs a series of written strips over the ceiling at an exhibition hall, while citizen initiative in art, science and technology Lifepatch uses a gidital screen for its displays. 

World Architecture Community is Magazine Sponsor of the Biennial and will bring to you the hottest installations, discussions and updated news from the event. 

Bakudapan

Bakudapan at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial. 

Themed as "A School of Schools", the Biennial will discuss the challenges faced by design education in today’s changing world and it will explore alternative models of design education in general, conceiving design education as a new experimental space. 

The Biennial will start from from 22 September to 4 November 2018 at six venues of the city’s most iconic cultural institutions, which will play host to the biennial's many schools, exploring the multiple dimensions of design as learning. Each venue will focus on different theme regarding the theme of the Biennial. 

These venues will be Akbank Sanat, Arter, Yapı Kredi Culture Centre, Pera Museum, SALT Galata and Studio-X Istanbul. 

Carlos Monleón

Carlos Monleón's installation at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial.

"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," said curator Jan Boelen. 

"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?."

Peter Zin

Peter Zin's installation at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial.

Visitors will be able to explore different topics of the theme of the Biennial with sub-topics. For example, Akbank Sanat, the Unmaking School will search the irrepressible human instinct to be creative as a pedagogical dynamo that drives innovation in production, redefines the future of work, and reframes our engagement with our cities.

The Yapı Kredi Culture Centre will delve into Currents School that will explore flows, networks, distribution, and hierarchies of information and subjects, both digital and analogue, abstract and embodied, to critically examine new technology and systems. 

Another venue Pera Museum will investigate Scales School, focusing on the fluidity of taxonomies, quantifications, and institutionalised norms, standards and values to highlight biases and assumptions in our social, economic and intellectual agreements.

Lifepatch

Lifepatch's installation at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial.

At Arter, the Earth School will ask what is natural, what is disaster, and what is evolution when the planet and human are forced to renegotiate their pedagogical relationship. 

The Time School, presented at SALT Galata, will travel from hyper-speed and acceleration into the expansiveness of deep time, learning about contested pasts and speculative futures from paradoxical durational perspectives and the objects that dictate them, while the Studio-X Istanbul will present the Digestion School that will learn from metabolic systems, patterns of consumption, cultural rituals, and food infrastructure to consider how circular education and lifelong learning manifest.

Pedro Neves Marques

Pedro Neves Marques' film screening at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial.

"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," added Jan Boelen. 

"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," continued the curator. 

Chick Strand 

Chick Strand's film screening at the at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial.

The Biennial also documents alternative approaches and interviews on its Journalsection at the Biennial's website. Visitors can find details, articles and recent images about the theme and the preparations of the event. 

Ottonie von Roeder/Post-Labouratory

Ottonie von Roeder's project to be presented at Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image courtesy of Ottonie von Roeder.

The most interesting part of the Biennial is the Robotic part that focuses on the recent robotic and 3D-print productions in design education. German designer Ottonie von Roeder, one of the participants of the Biennial, will search the impacts of some automation systems that affect our lives. 

Roeder's "Post-Labouratory" project, which will be presented at the Biennial, will search an answer to the rapid automation of labour and the resulting cultural crisis. 

"It liberates us from the idea of the necessity of labour and supports us in discovering our true desires. It offers participants the possibility to abolish their job by developing a robot that does their labour with the engineering help of post-labour companions," said Ottonie von Roeder in her project description. 

Time School created by Offshore Studio.

Offshore Studio, founded by Isabel Seiffert and Christoph Miler, created visual materials and brand identity of the Istanbul Design Biennial for different sub-topics. Offshore Studio spoke to Tuğçe Karataş in a special interview, explaining their inspirations for visualizing the theme of the Biennial. 

Unmaking School created by Offshore Studio.

Scales School created by Offshore Studio.

Digestion School created by Offshore Studio.

You can see all the participants of the Biennial here. The Biennial will start from 22 September and will continue till 4 November 2018 at six venues in Istanbul. 

Top image: Bakudapan at the Istanbul Design Biennial 2018. Image © Kayhan Kaygusuz, courtesy of Istanbul Design Biennial.

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