Refuge in Istanbul
On 11 September, 2009 the 4th IABR project Refuge by Philipp Misselwitz and Can Altay was presented in Istanbul as one of the Opening Events of the 11th International Istanbul Biennial.
The presentation and panel discussion included contributions by Yaşar Adanalı, Can Altay, Handan Coşkun, Selva Gürdoğan, Amr Saeddine, Philipp Misselwitz and Alessandro Petti, and was moderated by Ursula Biemann
The panel "Refuge" explores the causes and spatial impact of migration through voluntary or involuntary "refugees" who are transforming cities around the globe. Individuals or groups are elegantly or forcefully encapsulated from within the context of the city and society. Refuge produces an ever more atomized urban tissue where the "camp" has become both spatial paradigm and everyday reality, be it in the form of a gated community, slum, or humanitarian refugee camp. The panel will present projects by urban activists, architects, planners and artists, who attempt to intervene, subvert or transgress this reality. Their work attempts to provide refuge for a fragile or threatened constituency, to improve refuge by re-imagining camps as empowering spaces of civil and political rights, to dismantle refuge by reintegrating unbound spaces into social and political contexts, or to prevent refuge by imagining urban renewal beyond social segregation and eviction of the poor. The panel will discuss the possibilities for architects, artists or cultural producers to operate in the context of failed political structures or societies, where projects demand the construction of temporary moments of civility.
More on www.iksv.org/bienal11/
