Istanbul Design Biennial 2016: today's radical ideas rarely come from designers according to Istanbul Biennial curators Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, who say the entire industry is 200 years out of date (+ interview).
Colomina and Wigley ? who teach architecture at Princeton and Columbia respectively ? claim that design has become a cultural phenomenon, with huge public interest generated by online and social media. But designers have been left behind.
"Design has gone viral in a big way. But the design community is stranded in an older idea about design and an older behaviour," said Wigley during an exclusive interview with Dezeen.
The Istanbul Design Biennial will showcase the work of scientists, historians, archaeologists and artists The proof of this, he said, is the way that most design exhibitions and biennials are put together.
"They have become like trade shows," he said. "Biennials have become a way of telling the world that everything is okay and that design is going on, but you're not really invited to think."
In response, the husband-and-wife duo have planned their Istanbul Design Biennial next month as "an attack on good design".
They plan to showcase the work of scientists, historians, archaeologists and artists, to question whether design as an industry could be more ambitious.
"It is a call to rethink what design is in our time," said Colomina.
"Our economy and our ways of producing have c...