2nd Istanbul Design Biennial
The Future is Not What it Used to Be
November 1 – December 14, 2014
Galata Primary School, Istanbul
Curators: Zoë Ryan, Meredith Carruthers
The exhibition will feature more than 50 projects by designers working in Australia, China, France, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United States. The projects question the manifesto as a platform for situating ideas and pointing to new directions. They propose alternative manifestos in the form of household objects, fashion accessories, food, menus, maps, buildings, visual languages, systems, and services.
Concept
Throughout history, manifestos have functioned as statements of purpose, stimulating dialogue without limitations and pursuing inquiry as a radical process. Manifestos have typically been produced as texts that lie somewhere between declaration and desire. In the new context of today, how can we reclaim the manifesto as a catalyst for critical thinking in design? Reinvented as an action, a service, a provocation, or an object, what new potentials might the manifesto have for generating inventive outcomes that address both positive and negative consequences?
Istanbul, a city undergoing rapid transformation, is a hub for alternative thinking about design and its relationship to daily life. It is therefore an ideal place for a biennial that will bring together a diverse cross section of design ideas for the emerging conditions of our world. Using the city as a dynamic space for projects, talks, workshops, publications, and actions (as well as generating online initiatives), the biennial will present an international range of projects that open up new attitudes and sensibilities, foregrounding underexplored or overlooked aspects of society, and prompting investigation and exchange about our designed, constructed, and digitized age.
The word “manifesto” is derived from the Latin verb manifestare, which means “to bring into the open, to make manifest” and refers to the act of making visible. Manifestos emerge at moments of rapid change and questioning, when present conditions afford multiple potential visions for the future. Productive moments in history are not for the faint of heart. Indeed, many early-twentieth-century manifestos favored collective action and called for violence, destruction, and societal rupture to allow for a fresh start (Futurist Manifesto, F.T. Marinetti, 1909; Ornament and Crime, Adolf Loos, 1910). Others have employed the manifesto to rethink disciplines through site-specific analysis (Learning from Las Vegas, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, 1972) or to conflate the past and the present to form a new portrait of the world in which we live (Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas, 1976). Still others have suggested best practices or alternative methodologies (Ten Principles for Good Design, Dieter Rams, 1980s;Critical Design, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, 1999). As diverse as the designers who have created them, design manifestos have addressed issues as far ranging as ecology, science fiction, sustainability, play, color, clothing, responsibility, urbanism, normalism, DIY, storytelling, alternative methodologies, open source, and pesto!
As the 20th century came to an end, however, there was a sense that the age of the manifesto was over. Manifestos were deemed outdated and historical; the utopian project no longer seemed current or relevant. As we move further into the 21st century, new languages, forms, and methods are being sought to readdress urgent challenges, particularly the global balance of equality. It is therefore an appropriate time to reconsider the manifesto, harnessing its declarative power and ability to frame pertinent questions, while rethinking what a manifesto can be.
Seeding ideas and fostering dialogue and debate, the biennial will feature new commissions and projects selected through a two-stage call for ideas (see below for more information). The biennial will embrace designs that are visionary yet grounded in everyday realities—projects whose innovative approaches are transforming how we see, interact with, and understand the world. The biennial will articulate a portrait of design activity today, mapping the often unexpected ways the field intersects with contemporary life: with basic human needs such as food, shelter, health, and safety, but also with less tangible issues, including love, play, fear, discord, abundance, sustainability, mobility, accessibility, community, and geopolitics.
In an open call the biennial invited designers and others to submit manifestos (whether texts, actions, services, objects, or something else) that imagine a new future and instigate change by building on and reinterpreting history, changing both in the process. Rather than merely highlighting large claims and loud voices, the biennial seeks nuanced and layered approaches, manifestos that question the role of design and suggest alternatives from multiple points of view, generations, and places. Neither a means to an end, nor an end in itself, the biennial encourages interaction and participation. This is an occasion to explore the changing scope of design across various fields of practice and to shed light on current global challenges.
Curators
Zoë Ryan is a British curator and writer. She is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since joining the museum in 2006 she has been building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design in addition to expanding its holdings in historical and contemporary architecture.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach to her work, Zoë’s recent exhibitions include “Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects” (2012), the first survey exhibition of this Chicago-based architecture practice; “Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund” (2012), which investigates the construction of narratives in fashion design; “Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention” (2011), a major retrospective of this iconic Chicago architect; “Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design,” (2010), an international survey exploring inter-disciplinary practices in architecture and design; “Konstantin Grcic: Decisive Design” (2009), the first solo exhibition of the work of this important industrial designer’ and “Graphic Thought Facility: Resourceful Design” (2008), the first solo show of the work of the eponymous London-based studio.
Prior to working at the museum, Zoë was Senior Curator at the Van Alen Institute in New York, a non-profit public art and architecture organization committed to improving the design of the public realm. In addition to editing the Van Alen Report, the Institute’s quarterly journal, she organized a variety of exhibitions including “The Good Life: New Public Spaces for Recreation”.
Zoë has also held curatorial assistant positions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Meredith Carruthers is a curator and artist living in Montreal. Often taking the role of the role of instigator, facilitator or co-conspirator, she is invested in alternate narratives and the materialisation of research. Her recent projects include mSm: Molinari, Sala, Munari, with Andrea Sala at the Guido Molinari Foundation (2011) and Museum of Joliette (2012) and Parade, a choreographed art display at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery (2011).
With the artist-curator initiative Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley, 2004 -) she has produced exhibitions and special projects in collaboration with venues in Canada and abroad, and participated in residencies in Banff, Dawson City and Vienna. As part of the curatorial team at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (2008-2012), she worked on Actions: what you can do with the city (2008-09), Journeys: How travelling fruit, ideas and buildings rearrange our environment (2010-2011) and Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture (2011-2012). She has written on theoretical architecture, window display and conceptual exhibition making for: Canadian Architect, CAN (forthcoming), cura.art magazine, UK (forthcoming), Abitare, IT (2013).