The 18th Istanbul Biennial has officially opened its first phase to the public, marking the beginning of an ambitious three-year cultural project that will unfold until 2027. Organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), this edition is curated by Beirut-based Christine Tohmé under the compelling title "The Three-Legged Cat." The current exhibition will remain accessible to visitors through November 23, 2025, setting the stage for a comprehensive exploration of self-preservation and futurity in contemporary art.
The biennial's innovative structure spans three distinct phases, each designed to build upon the previous one. The second phase, scheduled for 2026, will establish an academy and foster collaboration with local initiatives through a series of public programs. The final chapter in 2027 will synthesize all accumulated encounters through exhibitions and workshops, creating a comprehensive cultural experience that evolves over time.
Christine Tohmé brings a unique perspective to this curatorial role, drawing from her extensive experience at the intersection of cultural production, arts education, and community-building. Her curatorial framework for this edition thoughtfully addresses themes of self-preservation and futurity while acknowledging the pervasive global climate of violence. In her own words, "Artmaking is engaged as a counterpoint to erasure, in summoning what has been buried, in generating surplus from loss, and in projecting possible worlds, it becomes a form of testimony and an index of persistence."
The curator's vision extends beyond traditional exhibition concepts, proposing that preservation itself constitutes world-building. "The Three-Legged Cat proposes that preservation is world-building," Tohmé explains in the biennial guide. "To rest, to linger, to scavenge, to laugh, to refuse – these are not minor gestures but foundational blocks towards a yet-to-come."
The 2025 edition showcases works by 47 artists distributed across eight carefully selected venues in Istanbul's historic Beyoğlu and Karaköy districts. These locations form a walkable route that seamlessly integrates contemporary art with the city's rich architectural heritage. The venue selection reflects the precarious state of Istanbul's built environment, with many spaces being abandoned, under renovation, or in transition – a condition that mirrors the broader pressures of gentrification and commodification facing cultural production spaces.
Each venue carries significant historical and architectural importance, adding layers of meaning to the artworks they house. Muradiye Han, designed by M. Vedad Tek, an architect of the First National Architecture Movement, originally served as a trading house before becoming a French military post during the occupation of Istanbul. Following its restoration in 2021 by Han Tümertekin, it now hosts Ana Alenso's powerful installation as part of the biennial.
Galeri 77, a former wine storage facility dating back to 1895, provides the setting for works by Haig Aivazian, Ola Hassanain, Mona Marzouk, and Dilek Winchester. Meanwhile, Elhamra Han, one of Istanbul's earliest theater halls built in 1827, was later adapted for entertainment and commercial uses. This historic venue now houses works by an impressive roster of artists including Mona Benyamin, Şafak Şule Kemancı, Jagdeep Raina, Riar Rizaldi, Lara Saab, Natasha Tontey, and Sevil Tunaboylu.
Among the exhibition's standout works, Khalil Rabah's "Red Navigapparate," presented in the Garden of the Former French Orphanage, operates at the compelling intersection of spatial intervention and conceptual inquiry. This installation engages with complex questions of land ownership, displacement, and contested histories. A narrow water channel cuts through the site, traversed by a rigid red pipe that evokes infrastructures of extraction and control, creating a powerful visual metaphor for contemporary geopolitical realities.
Rabah's installation presents striking contrasts throughout the space. On one side, a manual transpalette placed on a marble pedestal creates a dialogue between mobility and constraint. On the opposite side, a field containing more than 1,000 red barrels, each planted with olive, citrus, or nut trees, forms a temporary nursery where concepts of rootedness and displacement are staged in productive tension.
Ana Alenso presents an immersive multimedia installation at Muradiye Han that reflects on the complex social and ecological realities of gold mining in Venezuela's Amazon region. Her work "What Mine Gives, the Mine Takes" offers visitors a profound examination of extractive industries and their impact on both communities and environments.
At Galeri 77, Ola Hassanain's "A Whispering Dam (2024)" explores the intricate relationships between built infrastructures, ecological systems, and power regimes. This sculptural work references the modernist Sennar Dam on the Blue Nile in Sudan, evoking the complex intersections of environmental fragility, social life, and political structures that characterize much of contemporary global experience.
The Galata Greek School houses Lungiswa Gqunta's "Assemble the Disappearing (2024-2025)," a maze-like, post-organic terrain whose ruptures and twists powerfully evoke themes of discontinuity and collapse. Drawing inspiration from the writings of anti-colonial thinker Amílcar Cabral, who emphasized a return to land as central to liberation, Gqunta's installation extends her ongoing practice of resisting colonialism, dispossession, and erasure while directly addressing legacies of patriarchy, imperial violence, and apartheid in South Africa.
The biennial's approach to venue intervention reflects a thoughtful philosophy of minimal disruption. Essential refurbishment has been limited to basic needs, allowing the artworks to respond directly to existing architecture and surrounding urban conditions. This strategy creates authentic dialogues between contemporary artistic practices and Istanbul's layered urban fabric.
With its first chapter now open to the public, the 18th Istanbul Biennial successfully positions contemporary artistic practices within both the shifting urban fabric of Istanbul and broader global conditions. By engaging with themes of displacement, memory, ecology, and resistance, the biennial establishes art as a crucial means of reflecting on present realities while projecting possible futures. The exhibition's distribution across historically layered venues in Beyoğlu and Karaköy underscores the vital interdependence between cultural production and the built environment, offering visitors a unique opportunity to experience how contemporary art can activate and transform urban spaces.
