THE VENUE & THE 16th ISTANBUL BIENNIAL
Plastic Twist was disseminated in Istanbul very well and an interest arose from various sectors and people. The PlasticTwISTanbul workshop also attracted 53 people who are worked and collaborated on creating innovative business ideas where 39 of them generated during the workshop in Istanbul and 3942 tokens in total transferred. Therefore, PlasticTwISTanbul has already started to attract communities in Istanbul.
Coincidentally the two similar global actions met. The Istanbul 16th Biennial this year has a concept on: The Seventh Continent’ – 3.4 million square kilometres, 7 million tons of floating plastic in the Pacific Ocean. The curator, Nicolas Bourriaud, expresses this as follows: The Seventh Continent is an anthropology of an off-centred world and an archaeology of our times. It shows today’s artistic production as a multiverse, an archipelago of differences, away from normative continents and massive entities. It defines art as a molecular anthropology, which studies the human effects, tracks and prints in the universe, and their interaction with non-humans.
The 16th Istanbul Biennial which will take place from September 14th to November 10th, 2019 will explore this new continent: a world where humans and non-humans, our mass-productive systems and natural elements, drift together, reduced to particles of waste.
https://bienal.iksv.org/en/16th-istanbul-biennial/the-seventh-continent
Today, we are acknowledging that the canonical western division between nature and culture has come to an end. The Anthropocene (According to most scientists, the name of the new geological era we are entering into, characterised by the impact of human activities upon the planet.) theory has contributed to this awareness, as the impact of human activities on nature generates an intertwined world where culture is reintegrating into nature, and vice-versa. Meanwhile, due to the increasing interconnections between cultures, as well as the development of transportation and migratory flows, the old centres are turning into megapolises sheltering a multitude of micro-cultures.
PlasticTwist intrigues human inhabitants in the planet busy with mass-productive systems by showing the alternate which will make us prepared and our lives resilient at the beginning of anthropocene. The art work on the Seventh Continent and Plastic protesting the current situation of the planet and how human made it, can inspire PlasticTwist audience on feeling the issue deep inside where they will look for ways to get rid of it. At this phase, Plastic Twist brings another dimension in the audience’s mind and trigger it to act.
Consequently, PlasticTwist Launch Event collaborates with the 16th Istanbul Biennial as one of its side activities and an endpoint of the Biennial where will be held at the closure date November 10th, 2019 Sunday in one of the biennial visiting sites; Pera Museum, Istanbul.
The last day of the Biennial becomes also one of the most crowded days as many people would not miss the last opportunity to see the art work. In previous biennial which was the 15th one, there had been 440.000 visitors in 8 weeks in 6 different venues. This year, there are 3 different venues like Pera Museum, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Academia and Princess Islands and again 8 weeks, if the number of visitors would be the same as the previous one, the venues probably might be more crowded.
Couched in the historic quarter of Tepebaşı, the impressive building was originally conceived as the Bristol Hotel, designed by architect Achille Manoussos in 1893. Restorer and architect Sinan Genim was given the daunting renovation operation in 2003; the triumph of transforming the interior into a modern and fully equipped museum is only matched by the architect’s mastery in simultaneously preserving the exterior façade, safeguarding an integral part of Istanbul’s architectural flavour. Pera Museum has evolved to become a leading and distinguished cultural center in one of the liveliest quarters of İstanbul.
The event that is an officially side activity of the Biennial and the cocktail afterwards are locally organised by TAGES in collaboration with the PlasticTwist Consortium.
