Curated by
Kerem Piker and coordinated by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (
İKSV), the
Pavilion of Turkey will present
Vardiya (the Shift) at the
16th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, taking place from May 26th to November 25th 2018. Co-sponsored by
Schüco Turkey and
VitrA, the Pavilion of Turkey is located at
Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, one of the main venues of the biennale.
Shift: "Vardiya" in Turkish: noun (va'rdiya) | in Italian, "guardia" | in spanish, "cambio"
Conceived in response to the theme of
Freespace, the title of the Biennale Architettura 2018,
'Vardiya' offers a programme of public events with the Pavilion of Turkey, providing an open space for encounter, exhibition and production.
Envisioned as a spatial and temporal staging base, the Pavilion of Turkey will provide a participatory platform for workshops, digital roundtable discussions and meetings.
Piker’s curatorial programme will welcome 122 international architecture students, as well as academics, professionals, keynote speakers and visitors, inviting a diversity of voices to participate in a continuous process of learning and production throughout the twenty-five weeks of the Biennale. Placing the study of architecture at the centre of the programme, Vardiya launched an open call for video responses to the questions:
Why does the biennial exist?, What does the biennial do?, For whom does the biennial exist?. 452 students from 29 different countries and 70 cities from USA to China, India to Costa Rica applied for the project. 80% of the applicants were undergraduate students and 20% were graduate students; 70% of the applicants were female and 30% were male.
Out of these applicants, 122 international architecture students will be invited to visit the Pavilion of Turkey in weekly shifts as active producers of the evolving exhibition content. These students are currently studying at universities such as Cornell, Columbia, Cape Town, Harvard, Princeton, Rice, Rhode Island School of Design, Pratt, Politecnico di Milano, Sri Venkateswara, Sumatera Institute of Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University and Yale, as well as Çukurova, Dokuz Eylül, Erciyes, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts, Istanbul Technical University, Mardin Artuklu and Middle East Technical University in Turkey.
The programme will kick off with video installations, through which participating students question the purpose and role of the biennial; 12 workshops run by invited professionals and student groups, focusing on a variety of topics; around 50 digital meetings, with participants from a range of disciplines; and 6 lectures by keynote speakers, including an international roster of leading architects.
Vardiya is intended to solicit a critical dialogue amongst invited guests, visitors and architecture and design professionals around the role of the biennial. In addition to creating a space for all parties to benefit from this opportunity of interplay,
the Pavilion of Turkey hopes to incorporate individual and collective experiments from young creative minds into the locus of contemporary architectural agendum.
Vardiya is curated by Kerem Piker. The associate curators are Cansu Cürgen, Yelta Köm, Nizam Onur Sönmez, Yağız Söylev and Erdem Tüzün.
The Pavilion of Turkey exhibition is coordinated by İKSV, and realised through the co-sponsorship of Schüco Turkey and VitrA, with the lighting support of
TEPTA Lighting, the contribution of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey. The Pavilion of Turkey opened for the first time at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia in 2014, upon a 20-year allotment of the Arsenale with İKSV’s initiation and the contribution of 21 supporters.
The General Manager of İstanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), Görgün Taner made an opening speech saying: “As the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, our journey at La Biennale di Venezia began when we took over the coordination of the Pavilion of Turkey in 2007, and has continued to develop after securing a long- term venue in 2014, with the contributions of 21 supporters. It is always a great pleasure to coordinate the exhibition, which we believe enriches the creative sectors in Turkey as well. This year, we are very excited to be hosting a project that enables us all to witness the formation process of the pavilion. We would like to thank, first and foremost, Kerem Piker and the curatorial team, all of our sponsors, and all the individuals, institutions and corporations that support the Pavilion of Turkey.”
Schüco Turkey General Manager Can Eren said: “I am pleased to be with you once again as a supporter of the Pavilion of Turkey at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. At the two previous biennials, we watched very precious projects with admiration and pride. In this year’s exhibition, we find it especially meaningful that our young architects do not only consider “production” in abstract terms; they also put it into practice in the ‘free space’ they are provided with, in times when we need to produce more than ever, rather than consume. We wish our distinguished curator and associate curators all the success in this brand new and exciting project.”
Speaking on behalf of VitrA, Executive Vice President of the Eczacıbaşı Building Products Division Ali Aköz said, “Our VitrA brand promotes and supports projects that contribute to the development of architectural culture. In all of these projects, we make an effort to engage diverse groups and create an environment of collaborative production. So, we are very excited that this year’s exhibition theme opens the door to a similar production approach. Since the acquisition of a permanent space for Turkey at the Biennale di Venezia, the world’s most important architectural event, we have co-sponsored the Pavilion of Turkey. This is our third shift as co-sponsor, and we are prepared to take on more shifts and continue to produce jointly in the years ahead.”
The curator Kerem Piker explained the conceptual framework of the project: "Architecture is a field that is constantly expanding, transforming and renewing itself. As such, there is a need for environments where architectural knowledge is reproduced, shared and discussed, and the voices of new participants are heard. As the International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia is one of the most important informal learning arenas in architecture, we prefer to describe the Pavilion of Turkey as a space for meeting, encounter and production rather than merely an exhibition space. In order to strengthen and diversify participation, as well as expand the curiosity of new actors in the field, we organised an open call for applications to imagine the Pavilion of Turkey as a meeting space for architecture students from all over the world. 122 selected young architects will meet with professionals, academicians and enthusiasts from different backgrounds, co-produce with scheduled programmes and co-create an exhibition that expands on these productions. Along with the participants, who we believe are a crucial part of contemporary culture and architectural debate, as curious individuals asking questions and constantly improving themselves, we strive to understand each other and be productive together. We also see this exhibition and the preparation process as an opportunity to rethink what a biennial does, for whom, and why it exists in our time."
