Christine Tohmé to Curate 18th Istanbul Biennial with Three-Year Structure from 2025-2027

Beirut-based curator Christine Tohmé will direct the 18th Istanbul Biennial, organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). The event adopts an unprecedented three-part structure spanning 2025 to 2027, beginning with exhibitions and public programs from September 20 to November 23, 2025. A permanent educational offering and quarterly public program will launch in 2026 through collaborations with local art initiatives. The final phase from September 18 to November 14, 2027 will feature exhibitions, publications, performances, and discussions. Tohmé emphasized that this extended timeframe prioritizes artistic production over formal presentation, allowing deeper engagement with local contexts and fostering collective projects. The first leg's theme addresses self-preservation and futurities amid precarity and recurring crises, inviting artists to explore respite, solidarity, and resistance strategies. Tohmé asked, 'How can we inhabit our worlds as they unravel, making space for both nightmares and dreams, impermanence and endurance?' She is founding director of Ashkal Alwan, a Beirut non-profit supporting contemporary art since 1993, and curated Sharjah Biennial 13 in 2017, recognized with the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture in 2018.