Not Quite a Finissage! / 5th Istanbul Design Biennial

The 5th Istanbul Design Biennial – Empathy Revisited: Designs for more than one – was launched in October 2020 with many of its projects continuing to live post-2021. Not quite a finissage! consisted in a day-long event, which marked the closure while opening new works to the public at the same time. It presents projects by an international line-up of designers, architects, and artists, whose work adopts sensitive, diplomatic, sometimes therapeutic functions, with the aim of connecting us with one another but also with the world around us. Seeking to define a new role for design based on empathy, this event interrogates how we relate emotionally with other species and bodies – biological, geological, mineral, mechanic.  

Invited speaker for the closing event