Krysa, which works with both people and other entities, has invited five art, research and technology entities for curatorial collaboration: Critical Environmental Data, Museum of Impossible Forms, TBA21–Academy, ViCCA @ Aalto Arts and AI Entity.
Comprised of more than 50% new commissions and site-specific work, the first announced participants are:
Matti Aikio (Fl), Dineo Seshee Bopape (ZA), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (UK), Sasha Huber (CH/FI) & Petri Saarikko (FI), A gig (UK), Sonya Lindfors (CM/FI), Lotta Petronella with Sami Tallberg & Lau Nau (Fl), Tuula Närhinen (Fl), Diana Policarpo (PT), Sepideh Money (IR/Fl), Emilija Škarnulytė (LT) and Adrián Villar Rojas (AR).
For 2023, the biennale will expand beyond Vallisaari to Helsinki – the northernmost metropolitan area in the world – to adopt its position in the Gulf of Finland. The biennale, which focuses on the island’s outdoor spaces, will also spread to the mainland. Other biennial destinations are HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Helsinki Central Library Oodi, Cultural Centers in various parts of the city and online, more destinations will be announced.
“When pollution changes the projects that make the world, shared worlds – and new directions – can emerge.” – Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing.
New Directions May Emerge takes its name from a quote from anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, who suggests learning the “art of noticing.” The biennale explores how we can find new ways of living in the world and understanding it by paying special attention to other people, animals, plants, the environment, data and other entities around us.
The biennial unfolds through diverse acts of perception, sensing and sensing. Moving from humans to non-humans and between different scales – a spectrum that encompasses data at the smallest scale to islands and speculative new worlds that signify the largest – the biennale invites viewers to consider how recognizing small or otherwise invisible details can spark possibilities for action. , imagine in a different way and reconcile the effects of human activity with environmental and technological damages.
The biennale presents three main conceptual threads: contamination, regeneration and the actor. The Baltic Sea is one of the world’s most polluted waters, exposed to waste from violence and unregulated industrialization. Still, the Helsinki Biennale proposes new layers of production contamination as a cross-pollination between practices and ideas. It recognizes that biennales have often been based on principles of urban revitalization in terms of tourism and economy, and further suggests how exhibitions can be a healing and restorative force. Finally, the concept of action explores how human life, the environment and technologies can evolve together to produce new and unexpected results. Krysa elaborates:
“How can pollution be a force for positive change? How can we use biennales to reform things more broadly? How might agency extend beyond humans to other non-human beings and assemblages, including artificial intelligences? How might these strands be re-channeled to consider ways in which practices and future worlds could to think?’
This future-oriented vision is reflected in the practices and ethics of the Helsinki Biennale itself, which maintains a commitment to responsible exhibition activities and socially sustainable and inclusive principles. After its inaugural edition, the Helsinki Biennale is building a new, custom-made environmental responsibility program to enhance the monitoring and evaluation of production and impacts (the 2021 impact study can be read here) in accordance with the strategy of the city of Helsinki to be carbon neutral by 2030.
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The complete artist list and information on new orders will be announced in spring 2023.
Helsinki Biennale
The Helsinki Biennale is an international contemporary art event that takes place on Vallisaari and extends to the rest of the continent. Spokesperson for Vallisaari – a former military island that combines wild nature and urban heritage – sustainable and responsible values are at the heart of the Helsinki Biennale. Each edition features significant site-specific commissions from leading international artists. The Helsinki Biennale embodies the city’s ambitious cultural vision, which is committed to developing Helsinki’s art life at both grassroots and institutional levels. A major initiative of the city of Helsinki, the biennale is produced by the HAM Helsinki Art Museum. Its inaugural edition, The Same Sea, published in 2021, was curated by HAM chief curators Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola.
Joasia Krysa, curator of the Helsinki Biennale 2023
Joasia Krysa is a Polish curator and researcher living in Great Britain who works at the intersection of contemporary art and technology. He is Professor of Exhibition Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. Between 2012 and 2015, he was the artistic director of Kunsthal Aarhus in Denmark. He was part of the curatorial team of Documenta 13 (2012) and the curator of the 9th Liverpool Biennale (2016). Previous projects have been presented at, among others, The Whitney Museum of American Art, ZKM Center for Art and Media and Tate Modern. His current research focuses on artificial intelligence and curation.
Curatorial partners
Critical environmental informationA research group at Aarhus University that studies nature as data and many possible future perspectives.
Museum of Impossible Forms (MIF)A cultural center in Kontula, Eastern Helsinki, which unites art and culture workers who build anti-colonial, anti-patriarchal and non-fascist practices and futures.
TBA21 – Academya contemporary art organization and cultural ecosystem that promotes a deeper relationship with the ocean through the lens of art and inspires care and action.
ViCCA @ Aalto ARTSVisual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA), an interdisciplinary major at Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
AI Entitywas born as a collaboration between the collections of the HAM Helsinki Art Museum and Digital Visual Studies of the Max Planck Society project hosted at the University of Zurich.
International Advisory Committee
The International Advisory Committee consists of the following members: Manuela Moscoso, CEO, CARA – Center for Art, Research and Alliances, New York; Sunny Cheung, Curator, M+ Museum, Hong Kong; and Kasia Redzisz, Artistic Director, Kanal – Center Pompidou, Brussels.
Family
The visual identity of the second edition of the biennial was created by The Rodina, a post-critical design studio whose experimental practice is steeped in strategies of performance art, play and subversion. www.therodina.com
HT
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