8th Çanakkale Biennial

For its 8th edition the Çanakkale Biennial, under the title “How do we work together?” focuses on the concepts and experiences of "community", "work/labour" and "togetherness". It places the ever-radical and endlessly questionable nature of all these concepts at the core of the research framework of the biennial. Our philosophical inquiries empower us by giving us access to truths about ourselves as well as the world surrounding us and by motivating us to tackle (question, work on) them. It gives us reasons to live together and enhances our ability of to live together. And maybe it even leads us to coexistence under the same roof (home?, commune?, state?). When it comes to our relationship with the rest of the nature, the desire to live joyfully drives us to look beyond the power relations.

Questions such as "How do we produce together?", "How do we live together?", "How do we work together?" invites us to explore the connections/nodal points of the complex relationships between human-human, human-nature, human-animal, animal-animal and all living and non-living structures; It puts to the test different concepts such as hospitality, friendship, cooperation, labor, responsibility, justice, forgiveness, memory, mourning, joy... Paradoxes, impossibilities and singular chances that haunt the necessity of "living together" are questioned. It involves a kind of urgency and a spirit of irresistible responsibility.

Rotting/mildew as well as growth/maturation are included in these researches. Different temporalities, parallel lives are among the manifold aspects of these narratives. Where and how do we lived/ we live/we will live together, how do we organize life, does collaborations always give the best results etc. We propose to look at different forms and methods of dreaming together, living alone in crowds, acting as a part of nature.

...Dreaming together, living alone in crowds, acting as part of nature, coexistence of human and nonhuman, temporary associations / permanent structures (or vice versa), what we learned from Dionysus, around the table, growth / maturation or decay /molding, different temporalities, parallel lives… So does working together always work best?...