Katerina Gregos:
Can you describe the conceptual framework of the biennial and the changes you will instigate in its structure?

Vasif Kortun and Charles Esche
The Biennial is called simply 'İstanbul'. We chose that to indicate that this biennial will reflect its location and the way in which art can respond to a specific geo-political reality. We're not going for universalism for sure. As a consequence we are organising city residencies for 15-20 artists to produce new work and dividing the slection in two parts - 50% made in İstanbul ; 50% selected from other cities as a deliberate contrast to İstanbul and a way to stimulate thoughts about one city through representations of another. We are also planning a new element called İstanbul Positionings that will put existing cultural and activist initiatives in the city in touch with each other and with the biennial visitors. Under the Positionings umbrella projects such as the Van Abbemuseum exhibition, the book to accompany the biennial and other international projects will be included. Finally, we have already instigated as series of 9B talks for the ninth biennial that are happening in different locations across İstanbul as I write.

KG
You both have been critical of previous editions of the biennial. How will this reflect in your own version?

CE&VK
I am not sure where you have read those criticisms. More it is that now, at the ninth iteration, there is an opportunity to do something different. If the Biennial was originally planned as a way for İstanbul to 'catch up' on the development of visual culture in the US, the original European Union and Japan then that has been accomplished. Now, İstanbul can stand in its own terms, as a crucial fulcrum of social and cultural change and a place that can inspire outsiders to new perspectives and (hopefully) extraordinary new work.

KG
If I am not mistaken, you plan to abandon the use of the old historically charged buildings such as the Yerebatan cistern. What's the reason for this, what new venues and buildings will you be using and why?

CE&VK
Because they have become a cliché, in many terms. The idea of the foreign curator being wowed by the monuments of antiquity is itself antiquated, globalization needs more subtle responses. İstanbul is also the largest city in Europe and constantly in the process of remaking itself - we want to reflect that through our choice of vernacular architecture that is itself subjected to such processes rather than buildings frozen by conservation. Finally, the sites we have chosen are in the working city centre on the Galata side of the Golden Horn , a place that is used by İstanbullus far more than the tourist haunts across the river.

KG
The exhibition will extend into the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven ; how will this part of it relate to the very different context of the city of İstanbul ? Doesn't this part of the exhibition run the risk of being forced into an academic, museological straightjacket?

CE&VK
I guess only if you think museums are by definition academic straightjackets. If that were the case they should be closed but I don't think it's their inevitable fate. Instead, The show in van Abbemuseum is called Eindhovenİstanbul and attempts to reflect the two very different places through the way art has been commissioned, presented and collected there. Works from the van Abbemuseum collection will 'represent' the city of Eindhoven and works from the past 18 years of the İstanbul Biennial will 'represent' İstanbul . In this way two incompatible sites will be brought into dialogue through artworks - in ways that will prove awkward, tense and uncomfortable, just as globalisation demands of our societies. I think it is time that museums reflected on the status and possibility that biennials provide - to ignore that would be to condemn ourselves to your academic confinement.

KG
You are both socio-politically engaged in your curatorial practice; how will this translate into the context of the show?

CE&VK
I'm not sure what 'socio-politically engaged' really means here. We all live in this world after all and its difficult to hide from what's going on - especially in a city as era defining as İstanbul . But the context of the show is the city - not only is 'socio-political' aspect but its people, their intimacy and emotion, the street life, the smell, the colours - amongst much else that the artists will reveal to us.

KG
Can you tell me about the selection of the artists. What are the criteria by which you have selected them?

CE&VK
Firstly, we believe in their work. Secondly, we want to concentrate on the greater region around İstanbul including Balkans, Middle East and Central Asia .

KG
How will you avoid the now tired, homogeneous and seemingly ubiquitous 'cosmopolitan', 'internationalist' biennial which dominates the art world and create something more meaningful for the local situation as well as the city's wider geopolitical context?

CE&VK
But I just relearnt the words to the Internationale! Anyway, I don't believe artists are limited to their context, so let's not oppose internationalism to localism and judge the latter as better per se. We should think more in terms of possibility and telepoeisis (imagining the imagination of the other). If your cosmopolitan biennial restricts that form of imagination and limits possibility subsequent to the event then its tired - if not then let it ride. What we hope for this 9th İstanbul Biennial is that possibility and telepoesis will be augmented and released, in İstanbul and elsewhere. Why else do it?