The aim of this juxtaposition is to generate production itself. Here, creative practice is positioned not as the construction of a unified whole, but as “an attention that moves among singular fragments and their connections”. We investigate what can work with what; which unexpected contact might enable a new meaning, a new language, or a new object.
Global Design Forum İstanbul privileges process over outcome; persistence in adjacency over harmony; potential and inquiry over clarity. It ultimately seeks to celebrate design, creativity, and idiosyncrasy within the city.
Within this framework, we have enriched the programme carefully with four creative happenings, conceived to elevate the synchronisation between this globally accomplished and distinguished platform and the city, whose singular character and cultural cadence offer a compelling and resonant setting.
The first of these focuses on Placemaking: an installation programme that hosts a series of interventions and inquiries rooted in the city’s deeply embedded material heritage and spatial culture.
Among these, the inaugural installation draws upon Türkiye’s longstanding timber tradition, reinterpreted through the vision of an internationally acclaimed designer.
The other adopts a more participatory methodology, exploring processes of spatial formation within the city. Developed in collaboration with leading architectural practices and our foremost universities, these installations invite collective reflection on the evolving urban fabric.
The second approach is framed as Rethinking. Here, we propose to reawaken a culture of gardens at key threshold points across the city. In İstanbul, a city with a deeply rooted tradition of soil, cultivation, and garden culture, this initiative seeks to reconsider and reinterpret that heritage within a contemporary urban context.
To this end, we intend to launch an international competition for a site in the Yedikule district, thereby offering the city a thoughtful and forward-looking proposition through design.
The third approach is centred on Storytelling. İstanbullar is conceived as an editorial, auditory, and visual work of metafiction, an evolving narrative framework through which the city may be read, heard, and reimagined.
It operates as an interactive creative network, bringing together İstanbul’s designers through visual, sonic, and editorial contributions. In its first iteration, İstanbullar will identify forty design works, artworks, and spatial sites across the city. Texts for each will be commissioned from editors and the city’s storytellers, while emerging designers will produce innovative illustrations, as well as sound and visual content, creating a layered and collective portrait of İstanbul.
And, of course, at the heart of the programme lies the Forum itself. Developed alongside Forum Content Advisor Beatrice Galilee, this is a platform for intellectual exchange and critical reflection.
— Melek Zeynep Bulut, Founder, People Places Ideas & Artistic Director, Global Design Forum İstanbul
