Today was back to the present, specifically the main reason we came: The 2nd International Design Biennial! And along with that, we visited one of my new favorite libraries AND did all of this without ever feeling lost. (p.s. I already lost this blog once so this will be in 2 parts…so much to share)
We began with waking up from a very good sleep (finally!). And I let Kim handle the alarm and waking up at the correct hour this time. Breakfast here as usual and out the door. As usual, our hotel people helped explain to the cab driver where to go and the exact price it would be. As usual, we set off on an adventurous drive, though much of this was along the main stretch of highway along the coast. One side is the remains of Constantine’s wall amid buildings and the other is the Marmara Sea and Bosphorus with ships, with Asia across the way. (We still haven’t left Europe, btw. And any of the ferries across would be very cold right now.)
And as usual, once we get near our destination that the driver nodded he understood, the driver turns around and asks in Turkish something along the lines of, “Where is it?” After a lot of animated body language of “we don’t know, that’s your job”, I pulled out my camera and showed him the stairwell that had belonged to the Jewish family. Deniz had said that this is a famous landmark.
It worked! He nodded and kept driving in the usual fashion to our destination, which is across the street from the SALT art center and its design library that Deniz had shown us.
This library is just dreamy. One side is ALL books on art, design, art theory, architecture, photography, and many biographies. The vast majority of books are in English. We could not find any great examples of Turkish only design, but I found some great leads on information that will inform my research. The other side of the library is all Turkish history and society. About half of the books are in English and are also valuable for my research, as the explanation of WHY there are no examples of logos using Ottoman script. I got a general idea about the place and decided I will come back this weekend as Kim has a few location shoots she has planned with the other photographers, leaving me to my own attempts at not getting lost.
We began with waking up from a very good sleep (finally!). And I let Kim handle the alarm and waking up at the correct hour this time. Breakfast here as usual and out the door. As usual, our hotel people helped explain to the cab driver where to go and the exact price it would be. As usual, we set off on an adventurous drive, though much of this was along the main stretch of highway along the coast. One side is the remains of Constantine’s wall amid buildings and the other is the Marmara Sea and Bosphorus with ships, with Asia across the way. (We still haven’t left Europe, btw. And any of the ferries across would be very cold right now.)
And as usual, once we get near our destination that the driver nodded he understood, the driver turns around and asks in Turkish something along the lines of, “Where is it?” After a lot of animated body language of “we don’t know, that’s your job”, I pulled out my camera and showed him the stairwell that had belonged to the Jewish family. Deniz had said that this is a famous landmark.
It worked! He nodded and kept driving in the usual fashion to our destination, which is across the street from the SALT art center and its design library that Deniz had shown us.
This library is just dreamy. One side is ALL books on art, design, art theory, architecture, photography, and many biographies. The vast majority of books are in English. We could not find any great examples of Turkish only design, but I found some great leads on information that will inform my research. The other side of the library is all Turkish history and society. About half of the books are in English and are also valuable for my research, as the explanation of WHY there are no examples of logos using Ottoman script. I got a general idea about the place and decided I will come back this weekend as Kim has a few location shoots she has planned with the other photographers, leaving me to my own attempts at not getting lost.
We remembered how to get to the Design Biennial from this location. Walk to the bottom of the hill (we are on the bank street with all of those neoclassical buildings). This dead ends on a busy street, water visible to the right. Take a left away from the coast, walk up this busy street, eventually the Design Biennial location will appear on the left. But first, grab a bite to eat at a little stand/restaurant on the street. We had the usual meat (me a lamb/beef gyros like meat and Kim some chicken) shaved off and in a wrap somewhere between a tortilla and a pita, with pickled something and little french-fried potatoes all wrapped up into a sandwich. And pomegranate juice. Of course.
We walked up the street and soon found the school where this is being held. Free admission and we walked to the back. Realize that we didn’t quite know what to expect. Our visit had missed any of the talks - like the font walk! - because we needed to schedule this around our Fall Break. We didn’t quite understand where or what would be at the school because there were a lot of works listed on the website, but then notes how things would be around town at different times. So really…no idea. Bought the book at the front door and still figured we had missed some pieces because they were around town at other times.
NOPE! We missed some events, but EVERYTHING is in this one school. Overall, this event is not about graphic design as you may think. It is about DESIGN and design THINKING. My experience with European “design” has almost always been about something which has a function. Practicality but with experimentation at these juried events, oftentimes with a global conversation (visual or verbal). So as you look through these in the chronology just as Kim and I discovered it today, understand this in its context. It’s not a museum. It’s not an art show. It’s not a design competition. But it picks up on the common thread all of these share.
NOPE! We missed some events, but EVERYTHING is in this one school. Overall, this event is not about graphic design as you may think. It is about DESIGN and design THINKING. My experience with European “design” has almost always been about something which has a function. Practicality but with experimentation at these juried events, oftentimes with a global conversation (visual or verbal). So as you look through these in the chronology just as Kim and I discovered it today, understand this in its context. It’s not a museum. It’s not an art show. It’s not a design competition. But it picks up on the common thread all of these share.
The first room had a person reading to a group of small children in the center and a list on the back wall mostly in Turkish. This is still a functioning elementary school, I believe. There is also a gift shop and a broadcast center. Two pieces are here, UNFACEBOOK and a Growing Manifesto. See below.
Up to the second floor. Along a large back wall was this image and there was the sound of a forest with water. There were moving images of butterflies on a background. This was called Still Life to Living Pictures.
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