The third Istanbul Design Biennial opened this week. The curators, Mark Wigley and Beatriz Colomina, presented the theme 'Are We Human?' through a multi-site exhibition exploring the intimate relationship between design and the human spanning the last 2 seconds to the last 200 000 years. Amongst an international cohort of exhibitors, nine UK based artists and designers were selected to present their work.

In partnership with IKSV, the organisers of the Biennial, the British Council Turkey invited 8 senior curators and programmers from the UK to join the opening of the Biennial and attend a programme of visits showing the best of Turkish design. They are: Brendan Cromier (Victoria & Albert Museum), Claire Catterall (Somerset House), Eszter Steierhoffer (Design Museum), Jana Scholze (Kingston University), Jane Withers (Independent curator), Kate Goodwin (Royal Academy of Arts) Max Fraser (Independent writer and curator) and Riya Patel (Aram Gallery). Through this visit we hope to build relationships between UK and Turkish design insititutions enabling exchange and collaboration.