Organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since 1987, the Istanbul Biennial is preparing to make Istanbul the meeting point of contemporary art once again with its 17th edition next month. Supported by 2007-2026 sponsor Koc Holding, the event will be held on Sept. 17-Nov. 20.

For the biennial, curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Amar Kanwar and David Teh, the installation work continues for the projects that will be exhibited by participants from different parts of the world in various districts of Istanbul. The event is expected to bring together the projects of over 500 artists, experts and professionals, from writers, poets and musicians to architects, radio programmers, fishers, activists, stand-up comedians, chefs, ethnomusicologists, ornithologists, marine scientists and puppeteers.

The 17th Istanbul Biennial differs from the previous editions in terms of its scale, method and objectives, according to statements of the IKSV. The biennial aims to be a meeting point that nurtures and strengthens interaction and aims to produce a long-term impact this year.

It features more than 50 projects, each of which is the fruit of long-term research and cooperation and answers the questions such as "Can the biennial be a newspaper? Can it be a redesigned archive? Can it be a sea of announcements flowing through everyone like water? Can it be a meeting where insights from ancient songs, birds, grasses, fish, buffaloes are shared?" Therefore, it will be an invitation to spend time together, think, talk, listen, read, watch, ask questions and seek answers.

Biennial venues

The artwork at the 17th Istanbul Biennial will be on display for art lovers at 12 exhibition venues in the Beyoğlu, Kadıköy, Fatih and Zeytinburnu districts, as well as in over 50 bookstores, secondhand booksellers, hospitals, nursing homes, cafes, metro stops and radio stations all over the city. Most of the biennial venues will be used as exhibition spaces for the first time within the scope of the biennial.

Suna and Inan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum; the Performistanbul Live Art Research Space (PCSAA), which continues to work to unite and support artists in this field as an international performance art platform; Merkez Rum Girls' High School, one of the oldest Rum schools in Istanbul that has been closed since 1999; SAHA Studio, which SAHA initiated as a hospitality, interaction and production program for artists and curators; Büyükdere 35, hosting exhibitions of contemporary artists from different disciplines, various seminars, artist workshops and talks, and M2 Yenikapı-Hacıosman metro-line, one of the most innovative cultural and art spaces in Istanbul, are among the standout biennial venues in Beyoğlu.

Among the biennial venues in Kadıköy are the Müze Gazhane, one of Istanbul's 130-year-old industrial heritages, and arthereistanbul, which was founded in 2014 in Yeldeğirmeni by artists who had to leave Syria.

In the historical Fatih district, besides Barın Han, the five-floor studio of calligraphy and bookbinding artist Emin Barın, the Çinili Hammam, which was built by Ottoman architect Sinan for the Ottoman admiral Barbaros Hayrettin Pasha in the 16th century, will be opened to the biennial audience before it starts operating in 2023. The Küçük Mustafa Pasha Hammam, which is one of the oldest Turkish baths built in the 15th century during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II, also known as Mehmed the Conqueror, and hosted the Istanbul Biennial in 2015, is another exhibition venue on this route.

What to expect?

The biennial will tell stories from different geographies and time periods on many topics from gastronomy to ecology, from literature to food security, from migrations to marine life.

Visiting the biennial will be free of charge this year thanks to the sponsorship of Koç Holding.

Besides free exhibitions, the biennial will also include various open-air shows, performances, meetings, talks and film screenings. Activities, interventions and unexpected encounters will be part of the event. Diverse projects from poetry readings to magazine promotions, from parties to film screenings and podcast recordings, from garden tours to storytelling will be presented as part of the biennial.

Poetry line, birds

The 17th Istanbul Biennial will also spread to the city with the Poetry Line project carried out under the consultancy of Süreyyya Evren.

Nearly 200 new poems written by 15 poets throughout 2021 upon the invitation of the Istanbul Biennial will be accessible through various digital and physical channels during the biennial. Poetry boards can be found in different parts of the city, including on the windows and walls of secondhand booksellers, bookstores, restaurants and cafes.

In addition, the poems will be accompanied by interviews, podcast series and regular radio programs with the participating poets.

Part of the biennial, the "What Do Birds Think?" project, run by IKSV Alt Kat, also invites everyone to observe the birds around them, think about them and reconnect with nature. Guides prepared for "teachers" and "children and accompanying adults" within the scope of the project encourage children to think about how birds think, how they see people, the effects of environmental changes on their lives, their shelters, nutrition and movements.

'Wallowland'

The biennial will also host a long-running project called "Wallowland," by artist and activist duo Cooking Sections, whose project has been nominated for the Turner Award.

Founded in 2013 by Daniel Fernandez Pascual and Alon Schwabe, Cooking Sections is a London-based artist collective that studies the systems that organize the world through food. Adopting an art language that spans from site-specific installations to performance, the group's work blends visual art with architecture, ecology and geopolitics.

Using food as a tool to observe the transformation on Earth, the Climavore Project, prepared by the collective on the effects of the climate crisis on people's eating habits, was shortlisted for the Turner Prize, one of the prestigious art awards in the U.K., in 2021. This project of the collective, focusing on farmed salmon production conditions, also led Tate to remove farmed salmon from all menus.

Cooking Sections, whose works have been exhibited on many international platforms such as Tate Britain, Serpentine Gallery, the Venice and Shanghai Biennials, the Los Angeles Public Art Triennial, Manifesta12 and New Orleans Triennial, has also received many prestigious awards.

The duo's biennial-specific project will use food to address important environmental problems, tracing the effects of endangered wetlands around Istanbul on the city's water buffaloes.

The two-man group collaborated with herdsmen, biologists, environmentalists, conservationists, ethnomusicologists and many others, conducting extensive research into the feeding and growth patterns of the water buffaloes and different species around them at different times of the year.

Researchers Akgün Ilhan, Burçin Çıngay, Itri Levent Erkol, Melisa Bal, Mustafa Avcı, and the Anadolu Meralariıgroup also took part in conducting new research to reveal different aspects of the ecosystem in the region.

Their project aims to help preserve water buffalo breeding on Istanbul's outskirts. "Wallowland" can be viewed in Büyükdere35 in Beyoğu.