Believing in the importance of supporting knowledge and policy production in the field of design and architecture, the Istanbul Design Biennial hosts a research programme titled Designing Resilience, in partnership with the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research. The programme aims to work collaboratively with a selection of four women designers, curators, researchers, thinkers (two from Turkey and two from the US) who are actively investigating geopolitics to build new tools and systems for social, economic and mostly environmental resilience.

The objective of the programme is to inquire the connection between the oppression of women, POC, LGBTI+ all over the world, and the destruction of the environment, while revealing design's potential to instigate new processes, and spark global changes stemming from social, political and ecological endeavours.

The project aims at enabling researchers to contribute to establishing a different relationship with nature through collaborations across borders, institutions, and disciplines. It also aims at advancing and stimulating knowledge exchange in the field of design, and contributing to creating a sustainable common living space, in empathy with nature and all species. The programme will foster collective research methodologies as well as forms of solidarity and responsibility within the design field that could lead not only to ecological but also spatial, political, and social transformations.

The research projects will continue to evolve until October 2021 with support from the Istanbul Design Biennial, enriched by regular digital meetings held between researchers, and supervised by the evaluation board.

At the end of the program, the selected research projects will be presented in a display at a digital archive, a new public research space, which will be created by the Istanbul Design Biennial. A digital publication with essays, and visual research will also be brought to life. Four selected participants will be awarded 1.000 USD each to initiate and develop their research projects.

Women practitioners and thinkers including designers, artists, writers, curators, researchers, and academics from the US and Turkey are welcome to apply for the programme until 28 April 2021.

For details please visit: https://www.iksv.org/en/news/open-call-from-the-istanbul-design-biennial-designing-resilience