4th Istanbul Design Biennial awaits open call submissions

ISTANBUL

Organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and due to be held from Sept. 22 to Nov. 4, 2018 with the title of “A School of Schools,” the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial invites everyone from around the world to respond to its open call for submissions.

Submissions from various fields will be accepted until Dec. 15.

The open call is extended to all designers, architects, scientists, engineers, chefs, craftspeople, activists and everyone else who would like to take part in “A School of Schools,” curated by Jan Boelen, the İKSV said in a statement.

Applicants are invited to explore eight themes: Measures and Maps, Time and Attention, Mediterranean and Migration, Disasters and Earthquakes, Food and Customs, Patterns and Rhythm, Currency and Capital, and Parts and Pockets.

Biennial to span one year

In 2018, the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial will seek to consolidate the legacies of previous editions, reinventing the biennial format into a productive process-orientated platform for researching, experimenting and learning.

The organizers say “A School of Schools” will manifest as a multi-platform biennial that uses, tests, and revises a variety of educational strategies to reflect on the role of design, knowledge, and global connectedness in contemporary Istanbul and beyond. The biennial will thus take the form of a flexible year-long program, within which contributors respond to the theme of global acceleration, generating alternative methodologies, outputs and forms of design and education.

For the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial Jan Boelen is teaming up with Vera Sacchetti as Associate Curator and Nadine Botha as Assistant Curator.

Call for ‘schools’ and ‘learners’

The call for submissions is divided into a call for “schools” and a call for “learners.”

According to the İKSV, both learners and schools are urged to connect their applications to one or more of the themes under scrutiny for the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial.

Besides those who demonstrate a capacity and passion for learning, “A School of Schools” will give preference to proposals that are committed to not only learning but translating the learning into a communicable form.