Announcing: British Council Biennials Connect us with Can Altay
Can Altay, PARK: bir ihtimal, Public space intervention, 2010. Photo: Laleper Aytek
We’re delighted to announce that while Developing Coventry Biennial 2023, we’ve been successful in securing a Biennial’s Connect Grant from the British Council. The Biennials Connect programme promotes cross-cultural exchange and collaboration by providing opportunities for artists and biennial organisers to connect, collaborate and build meaningful partnerships across the globe.
This grant is enabling us to build a new relationship with Turkish artist and academic Can Altay. Can is a socially-engaged artist with a background in design and architecture. His works, which often explore how people use space in complex and layered ways, are designed to increase agency and to provide opportunities for new kinds of civic activity.
Dr Ian Sergeant (Curator, Coventry Biennial) says:
“It is an honour to welcome the internationally acclaimed artist and academic Can Altay to Coventry Biennial. From our initial conversation, I am really excited at the prospect of what Can will develop during his residency, due to his collaborative approach to place making and what this might mean to the people of Coventry and visitors to the Biennial. My knowledge of Can’s practice is that the outcome of the residency will raise important questions of culture(s), place, and people. In addition, this will be done with utmost care, compassion and consideration for those involved and the diverse communities of the city.”
Our very early conversations with Can have focused around access to water, fountains, regenerative futures and identifying potential local collaborators. Later this year Can will be completing a residency in Coventry and there will be a number of opportunities to engage with his work and practice.
Can Altay adds:
“I keep returning to spatial instruments and settings that can actively contribute to collection and distribution of resources, as well as provide spaces for gathering and exchanging ideas. This exciting new chapter will be a chance to unpack an ages-old apparatus such as the fountain, and see how it can inform a future where collective abundance is prioritized over monopolization of access. I am also looking forward to working with knowledge from Coventry, and see how it can seep into questions around access to power, access to water, access to existing networks of flow, and more.”
Through this project we’re additionally developing a relationship with Christian Mooney who represents Can through Arcade which offers a programme of exhibitions and a constantly evolving platform of performances, live events, talks and publications. Through these varied formats, Arcade aims to find new modes of presentation exploring the developments and complexities in contemporary art, across a range of practices, media and concerns.
Further information on this project will be available soon.
This residency is programmed by Coventry Biennial and is generously supported by a British Council Biennial’s Connect Grant.
by Ryan Hughes