Distinguished Artists and Scientists,

We are going through a period in which we face disasters that affect the lives of all living and non-living beings on earth in various ways. Disasters are often associated with pain, sorrow, sadness and disappointment. However, disasters carry with them the power of transformation as well as destruction. Creating this transformation is possible not by being a spectator to what is happening, but by taking actions to discover the potentials of what we experience.  Situations such as the climate crisis, which we can define as the resistance of the environment against the domination of man over the environment, infectious diseases that squeeze the hyper-globalised world back into certain areas, earthquakes as movements of the earth’s crust, and economic bottlenecks can be destructive on the one hand, but on the other hand, they can create an opportunity to put forward new strategies to start anew, to build a better one.  With the title ‘What’s Next?’, the 3rd Istanbul Aydın University International Student Biennial focuses on the unknown and positive/negative potentials of what is next, while on the other hand, it opens to question the states that all beings have transformed or may transform, for better or worse, despite all the unknowns of life throughout their lives. Do all these events and future events lead the world to extinction or, on the contrary, do they offer an opportunity to reflect on and expand the possibilities available for the construction of a better world? 

‘What’s Next?’ questions how we can confront and move forward with the effects of what’s next, while opening a door to how different approaches to disasters can be revealed through works of art; it wants to reveal visual, auditory, textual imaginations of destruction, rebirth, standing still, revival through works of art. What can we say about the power of adverse conditions that occur naturally or unnaturally to affect human and non-human beings? How do destructions and rebirths affect our relationships, the way we do business, the dialogues we establish in our daily lives? Is it the feeling of darkness and despair that is the result of destruction or the vitality and hope created by rebirth that directs our lives? Do we embrace the destructive power of disaster or the aspect that enables rebirth? Where are the technological developments we have experienced from past to present positioned in our encounters with disasters?  III. Istanbul Aydın University International Student Biennial invites pre-secondary, undergraduate and graduate students from different disciplines of art and design to think, design and produce on all these questions.