The 16th installment of the Istanbul Biennial, The Seventh Continent, tackles the idea of our new ‘decentred’ world, in which accepted norms and cultures have become fragmented (much like the floating plastic islands in the ocean, also called the seventh continent). The exhibition, curated by French art historian, curator and scholar Nicolas Bourriaud, presents a variety of artworks dealing with different ideas of reinvention and new creation.
The main venues for the Biennial are Antrepo 5 (in Tophane), Pera Museum and the island of Büyükada. The vast 600-year-old Istanbul Shipyards of the Golden Horn will be the main Biennial location this year, with a series of major art commissions throughout the site. The Pera Museum will be transformed into an anthropological museum for parallel worlds, a place for fictional archaeology and where artists will reinvent the past. Finally, five artists will be displaying works on Büyükada, the largest of the Princes Islands.
More information about the Istanbul Biennial can be found here.
Contemporary Istanbul 2019
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
