16th Istanbul Biennial
The Seventh Continent
14 Sep - 10 Nov 2019
Nicolas Bourriaud, Curator of the 16th Istanbul Biennial
One of the most visible effects of the Anthropocene, the new geological era characterised by the impact of human activities upon the planet, is the formation of a huge mass of waste that has been called ‘The Seventh Continent’ – 3.4 million square kilometres, 7 million tons of floating plastic in the Pacific Ocean. The 16th Istanbul Biennial 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.
Today, we are acknowledging that the canonical western division between nature and culture has come to an end. The Anthropocene 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.
The Seventh Continent is an anthropology of an off-centred world and an archaeology of our times. It defines today’s art as an archipelago of diverse enquiries into global life, tracking the prints of human activity on the earth and our impact on its non-human inhabitants.
Artists:
Deniz Aktaş
Özlem Altın
Anzo (José Iranzo Almonacid)
Pia Arke
Korakrit Arunanondchai
Ozan Atalan
Charles Avery
Radcliffe Bailey
Rebecca Belmore
Dora Budor
Johannes Büttner
En Man Chang
Monster Chetwynd
Norman Daly
Mariechen Danz
Jonathas de Andrade
Elmas Deniz
David Douard
Evru/Zush
Feral Atlas Collective
Simon Fujiwara
Anna Bella Geiger
Ernst Haeckel
Eloise Hawser
Marguerite Humeau
Suzanne Husky
Rashid Johnson
Sanam Khatibi
Eva Kot'átková
Agnieszka Kurant
Glenn Ligon
Armin Linke
Tala Madani
Jared Madere
Turiya Magadlela
Claudia Martínez
Ursula Mayer
Melvin Moti
Pakui Hardware
Glauco Rodrigues
Mika Rottenberg
Max Hooper
Luigi Serafini
Paul Sietsema
Ylva Snöfrid
Simon Starling
Jennifer Tee
Hale Tenger
Güneş Terkol & Güçlü Öztekin Güçlü Öztekin
Suzanne Treister
Piotr Uklański
Ambera Wellmann
Haegue Yang
Müge Yılmaz
Phillip Zach
Andrea Zittel
One of the most visible effects of the Anthropocene, the new geological era characterised by the impact of human activities upon the planet, is the formation of a huge mass of waste that has been called ‘The Seventh Continent’ – 3.4 million square kilometres, 7 million tons of floating plastic in the Pacific Ocean. The 16th Istanbul Biennial 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.
Today, we are acknowledging that the canonical western division between nature and culture has come to an end. The Anthropocene 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.
The Seventh Continent is an anthropology of an off-centred world and an archaeology of our times. It defines today’s art as an archipelago of diverse enquiries into global life, tracking the prints of human activity on the earth and our impact on its non-human inhabitants.
Artists:
Deniz Aktaş
Özlem Altın
Anzo (José Iranzo Almonacid)
Pia Arke
Korakrit Arunanondchai
Ozan Atalan
Charles Avery
Radcliffe Bailey
Rebecca Belmore
Dora Budor
Johannes Büttner
En Man Chang
Monster Chetwynd
Norman Daly
Mariechen Danz
Jonathas de Andrade
Elmas Deniz
David Douard
Evru/Zush
Feral Atlas Collective
Simon Fujiwara
Anna Bella Geiger
Ernst Haeckel
Eloise Hawser
Marguerite Humeau
Suzanne Husky
Rashid Johnson
Sanam Khatibi
Eva Kot'átková
Agnieszka Kurant
Glenn Ligon
Armin Linke
Tala Madani
Jared Madere
Turiya Magadlela
Claudia Martínez
Ursula Mayer
Melvin Moti
Pakui Hardware
Glauco Rodrigues
Mika Rottenberg
Max Hooper
Luigi Serafini
Paul Sietsema
Ylva Snöfrid
Simon Starling
Jennifer Tee
Hale Tenger
Güneş Terkol & Güçlü Öztekin Güçlü Öztekin
Suzanne Treister
Piotr Uklański
Ambera Wellmann
Haegue Yang
Müge Yılmaz
Phillip Zach
Andrea Zittel