Kiasma will be in charge of Nordic Pavilion at Venice Biennale in 2019. The exhibition to be hosted in the Nordic Pavilion takes as its theme one of today’s most pressing global issues: the complex and varied relations between humans and other living organisms in an age when climate change and mass extinction are undermining the preconditions of life on Earth.
The exhibition Weather Report: Forecasting Future presents Nordic perspective through the work of artist duo nabbteeri from Finland, Ane Graff from Norway and Ingela Ihrman from Sweden. The works in the Nordic Pavilion will be on show in Kiasma in early 2020.
Forecasting Future
Human actions have led to significant changes in the environment and the climate of the whole planet, climate being the common environment of all terrestrial ecosystems. The featured artists examine the complex interrelations between humanity and nature all aware of climate sensitivity and the inherent unpredictability in forecasting.
While investigating difficult climate issues, the exhibition stresses the idea of coexistence of humans and non-humans and the responsibility of humanity to take into consideration multi-species configurations. Such entanglements and dependencies — emotional as well as material — and agencies on a scale that differs from that of humans are all made visible in the artworks.
The Artists
The invited artists are Finnish duo nabbteeri, Janne Nabb (b. 1984) and Maria Teeri (b. 1985), Norwegian Ane Graff (b. 1974) and Swedish Ingela Ihrman (b. 1985). Their media include installation, sculpture and assemblage, performance, digital material and text. The artists’ practices often involve a fusion of visual art with humanities and natural sciences, a collaborative or dialogical process that takes place within a multi-disciplinary community. All the artists will create new works for the show in the Nordic Pavilion.
Ane Graff combines a broad range of research disciplines, from feminist new materialism to microbiology and chemistry. Her sculptures and installations interrogate conventional and allegedly stable structures and classifications based on science and cultural practices. Graff’s works make observable how the human body is exposed to other agencies, such as bacteria, as well as the toxicity of the environment.
Ingela Ihrman’s plant-shaped sculptures grow, bloom and wilt. Her works are also comments on the 1970s wave of environmental consciousness but from the queer studies perspective. Ihrman applies ethnobiology to the examination of the relationship of humanity to non-human nature. The installations often include performative element. The subjects and writings include the relations between different forms of life and the concepts of belonging and loneliness.
Artist duo nabbteeri works with context-specific art. They typically begin by mapping the place where they are working. Their work develops in interaction with the environment, its materiality and its multi-species inhabitants. nabbteeri often base their work on the tiniest life forms observable such as fur beetles or various rotting agents. Coexistence and recycling are close to the heart of the artists, who live in the countryside near the Ostrobothnian coast.
Nordic Pavilion
The Nordic Pavilion, designed by Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn, was completed in 1962 and has since been a space for collaboration between three nations: Finland, Norway and Sweden. For the period 2017 – 2021, the art in the Nordic Pavilion is presented as a joint project by the Nordic Committee. The countries will alternate as principal commissioner and manager of activities at the Nordic Pavilion.
The exhibition Weather Report: Forecasting Future is supported by Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation.