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News: British curator and writer Zoë Ryan has been appointed as curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial, to be held from 18 October to 14 December 2014.

Zoë Ryan is chair and curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as teaching art history at the institute’s school and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Istanbul Design Biennial is organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and the theme will be announced by Ryan in November.

Last year’s inaugural event was curated by then editor-in-chief of Domus magazine Joseph Grima and Istanbul architect Emre Arolat. The theme was Adhocracy and focussed on how new methods of production are bringing about a “cultural revolution” – read more in our report from the opening.

Projects on show included a rotation-moulding machine powered by a cordless drill, 3D-printed plastic connectors that combine with standard wooden parts to make furniture locally and a plotter taking the text of the Open Source Architecture Manifesto from a Wikipedia page and writing it onto a wall over and over again.

See all our stories about Istanbul Design Biennial 2012 »

Here’s the announcement from the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts:

Zoë Ryan appointed curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial

Zoë Ryan have been appointed as the curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial, to be held from 18 October to 14 December 2014 by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). British curator and writer Zoë Ryan is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Since joining the museum in 2006, British curator and writer Zoë Ryan has been building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design in addition to expanding its holdings in historical and contemporary architecture. In addition to her work at the museum, she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Art History Department at the School of the Art Institute and at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she teaches a Masters-level seminar focused on critical issues in design.

Prior to working at the museum, Ryan was Senior Curator at the Van Alen Institute in New York, a non-profit public art and architecture organization committed to improving the design of the public realm. In addition to editing the Van Alen Report, the Institute’s quarterly journal, she organised a variety of exhibitions including “The Good Life: New Public Spaces for Recreation”.

Ryan has also held curatorial assistant positions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Ryan is often called upon as a juror and critic and has lectured on her work internationally. She has served on the advisory committee of the Experimenta Design Biennial in Lisbon and was part of the curatorial advisory committee for Spontaneous Interventions in the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012. She served as Chair of the Jury for the National Design Awards, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York in 2013, and that same year was part of the jury for the Wheelwright Fellowship, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to her work, Ryan’s recent exhibitions include “Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects” (2012), the first survey exhibition of this Chicago-based architecture practice; “Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund” (2012), which investigates the construction of narratives in fashion design; “Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention” (2011), a major retrospective of this iconic Chicago architect; “Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design,” (2010), an international survey exploring inter-disciplinary practices in architecture and design; “Konstantin Grcic: Decisive Design” (2009), the first solo exhibition of the work of this important industrial designer’ and “Graphic Thought Facility: Resourceful Design” (2008), the first solo show of the work of the eponymous London-based studio.

In fall 2012, Fast Company magazine named Zoë Ryan one of the 50 people shaping the future of design.

About the Istanbul Design Biennial

The 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts from 18 October to 14 December 2014, will be realised under the co-sponsorship of Vestel and VitrA.
The conceptual framework of the biennial will be announced at a press conference in November 2013 by the curator Zoë Ryan.

The 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial Advisory Board Members are Chairman of the Board of Vitra Design Foundation, Mr. Alexander von Vegesack; architect, Han Tümertekin; architect, editor, writer and curator of the first Istanbul Design Biennial, Joseph Grima; Industrial Designer and Director of the first Istanbul Design Biennial, Özlem Yalım Özkaraoğlu; UltraRPM Chairman Paul McMillan; Vice Rector at Yasar University and Board Member and Design Coordinator of Izmir Mediterranean Academy, Prof. Tevfik Balcıoğlu and graphic designer, Yeşim Demir.

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