Istanbul Design Biennial 2020/2021

5th Istanbul Design Biennial Opens With ‘Empathy Revisited: Designs For More Than One’

Curated by Mariana Pestana with Sumitra Upham and Billie Muraben, Empathy Revisited: Designs for more than one, the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial opened its doors to the public—digitally and physically—on October 15. It runs until April 30, 2021.

Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) under the sponsorship of VitrA and with the support of Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the biennial will take place in exhibition venues, outdoor spaces in Istanbul and digital platforms. The projects displayed in the exhibition venues will be open to visit until November 15, 2020 while the interventions in the city, research projects and video series will continue to evolve until April 30, 2021 and beyond.

The biennial takes place during a global pandemic, a unique moment in time when the whole world is engaged in imagining what will come next. It’s a time of rupture and questioning. In face of the many and constantly shifting challenges and regulations brought about by the pandemic, the biennial devised a programme that rather than resisting or ignoring the current scenario, adapts to it. It reappraises the traditional biennial model to propose a generative and locally produced programme, developed in dialogue with, and catered for, the citizens of Istanbul. Concerned with legacy, many of the projects will continue to live post-2020. Amidst an acute ecological crisis and a general state of social isolation, the biennial invites us to think critically about how we relate to one another and to others, be them human or other bodies—biologic, bacterial, or geologic.