Sinopale 8, Sinop, Turkey / Online 2021-22
Launched on December 8th the 8th edition of Sinopale will unfold online throughout the spring. This edition is titled "İleri Dönüşüm / Upcycling" and all the curators have previously worked with earlier editions of the biennial – Beral Madra, Emre Zeytinoğlu, T. Melih Görgün, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Mürteza Fidan, Işın Önol & Livia Alexander, Rana Öztürk & Lars Ebert, Mahir Namur, Nil İlkbaşaran.
Online meetings, conversations, artist talks and screenings include artists who have taken part in previous editions and Sinopale's 15 year archive will also be made accessible during the biennial. Sinopale's YouTube channel.
Considering everything that grows consists of online inteviews with former participants in the biennial, released every three weeks. Participants include Alvaro Campo, Bella Rune, Éric van Hone, Maria Lantz, Raluca Popa, Ulrike Mohr
İleri Dönüşüm / Upcycling
As the pandemic period has changed the pace and living conditions of most of us radically, it provided many of us with the possibility to dig our lives deeper and reflect on ourselves. Losing our physical access to an abundance of things, revealed that not only the consumption rate but also the pace of production is simply unsustainable. It has become essential to utilise the resources we have more efficiently and to engage in an “upcycling” focus.
“Upcycling” in its common use, refers to creative reuse of old or waste materials by transforming them into a new product that is of higher value and/or of higher environmental value. Sinopale 8 takes the concept of “upcycling” in an ‘abstract’ form.
Art breeds values and contributes to the production of culture; to realize this it must be reflected upon and interpreted by society. Yet, today, art seems to keep pace with the craze of production and consumption. In the course of biennials, while artworks are produced one after another, the need elevates to spare the time to reflect on the meanings they add to our lives. Sinopale questions itself in this context and constructs a self reflection.
In response to this, Sinopale 8 focuses on the artistic works in its archive on the internet. It aims to shed light on the artworks that most of the artists have realized with the people of Sinop in all these years, or what they find inspirational in nature and the culture of the locality, and to evaluate these works in their relationship with today.
In order not to get caught in a flow where ideas and works of art are objectified and consumed like everything else, Sinopale 8 proposes to use past productions of art and experiences in the construction of the “new normal”; and suggests listening to what these ideas will tell us about what we should do differently about the future. Sinopale 8 sees development not in a vertical line, but as a path that expands with cycles and participation.
Artists: Adrien Tirtiaux, Alparslan Baloğlu, Alvaro Campo, Anne Metzen, Ashley Hunt, Aylin Çakıner, Bella Rune, Berglind Jona Hlynsdottir, Burçak Konukman, Dejan Kaluderovic, Emre Koyuncuoğlu, Eric van Hove, Eşref Yıldırım, Evrim Kavcar, Hayırlı Evlat, Hülya Karakaş, İpek Hamzaoğlu, Johanna Reiner & Johannes Hoffman, Johannes Vogl, Julie Upmeyer, Maria Lantz, Maurice Boagert, Mehtap Baydu, Monali Meher, Müride Aksan, Nezaket Ekici, Nil İlkbaşaran & Güngör Erdem, Raluca Popa, Ronan McCrea, Riikka Tauriainen, Sümer Sayın, T. Melih Görgün, Ulrika Mohr, Yusuf Emre Yalçın
Curators / Projects: Beral Madra, Emre Zeytinoğlu, Işın Önol & Livia Alexander, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Mürteza Fidan, Rana Öztürk, T. Melih Görgün, Lars Ebert, Nil İlkbaşaran & Mahir Namur
Organizing Team: Cansu Kırcan, Çağatay Şimşek, Çağla Çakır, Erkan Akliman, Ezgi Selin Ülkü, Güngör Erdem, İpek Hamzaoğlu, Mahir Namur, Mercan Uludağ, Mert Karaçıkay, Mustafa Bal, Nil İlkbaşaran, Lara Baksu, Serra Tansel, Selin Özcan, Seyit Şen, Sine İçli, T. Melih Görgün, Tülay Haspulat, Yağmur Güzle, Yiğit Bahadır Kaya, Yusuf Emre Yalçın. Framework Text: Nil İlkbaşaran, Mahir Namur, Serra Tansel, Yusuf Emre Yalçın Graphic/Website Design: Aygen İncel, Mustafa Kurt, Umut Südüak, Gün Yücel
NYA SMÅLAND, Multiple sites, Sweden 2016-2020
Multiple venue exhibitions, workshops, seminar and residencies.
First edition of triennial 2019-20
Artistic Director, curator and project manager, Nya Småland, with Mike Bode (2016-2019). In collaboration between Kalmar Artmuseum, Kulturparken Småland, Vandalorum, Växjö Konsthall and the Linnaeus University.
2016 was a pilot year where methods developed to present, engage and co-ordinate local actors and local knowledge and combine these with international contemporary art and critical thinking. It was a means to investigate and re-access the political, social and aesthetic landscape of Småland. The first year encompassed a number of public and non-public platforms as a part of articulating long-term relationships, experiment and create the conditions for critical and cultural sustainability. Residency at Kultivera Tranås and three larger seminars at Kalmar Artmuseum, Vandalorum, The House och Migration and Växjö Konsthall, talks at Kalmar Artmuseum and Polarcenter in Gränna. Participants 2016 included: Center for Landuse Interpretation, çöp(m)adam, Enno Hallek, Eric Van Hove, Juan-Pedro Fabra Guemberena, Jenny Nordberg, Greece is for lovers, Saskia Sassen, Sigríður Sigurjónsdóttir, and more
The project´s second year, 2017, among other entailed initiating a residency-exchange between Kultivera Tranås and the Soap factory in Minnesota and a 3-month residency in collaboration with Linnaeus University and the House of Migration and a residency at Polarcenter in Gränna.
2018 continues with residency-exchanges between Kultivera Tranås and the Soap factory in Minnesota; collaborations with Linnaeus University and the House of Migration and a residency at Polarcenter in Gränna. The large seminar in Tranås, Punctum Cesura, November 2018, was organised with Mike Bode and Frida Sandström in preparation for a multi-venue exhibition from March 2019 to September 2020.
- Exhibition venues inclcude: The Glass Factory, Jönköpings läns museum, KAIM in Mariannelund, Kalmar konstmuseum, Kultivator, Kultivera, Polar Center, Utvandrarnas hus, Italienska Palatset, Rävamåla residency, Vandalorum, Växjö konsthall, Österängens konsthall.
Publication 2020, Linnaeus University Press / Arvinius + Orfeus publishing.
Markus Vallien from Residency in Nature in conjunction to Nya Småland´s event Mariannelund Syndrome 2017. Photo: Emma Wood.
VR Pavilion, Venice, Italy 2019
Curator, VR Pavilion, Sara Tirelli, Fondamenta de la Tana, 2029 Calle Nova, Venice, Italy.
Commisioned by the Nordic Art Association, the first VR Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennial for Contemporary Art was staged at the Communist party centre and on a small boat departing every 30 minutes, taking a critical and site-specific approach to virtual reality technology. Beyond being dedicated to Virtual Reality the pavilion was also itself an immersive environment, and as such, a Venetian Reality that calls into question obsolete notions of national representation.
Medusa is a 360-degree video work experienced through Virtual Reality glasses. The work describes a Europe in crisis and the events that take place in the film consist of a mixture of facts and fiction. Sara Tirelli has used news, social media, EU documents and interviews to portray the EU's identity as well as the prevailing situation for people on the run. The title of the work refers to the Greek myth of being petrified when looking into the eyes of gorgon Medusa. It can also be associated with Theodoré Gericault's art-historical work Medusas Raft (1818-1819). In the painting, shipwreck survivors reveal how people suffer from the poor decisions made by those in power. Medusa's Raft can also be linked to today's images of refugees who risk their lives on their way to Europe, while the inhabitants of Europe witness the events in front of a screen. There is a clear lineage between the painting and contemporary media's images of the refugee situation.
The 5th Project Biennial of Contemporary Art D-0 ARK Underground, Do secret services dream of a museum? Tito's Bunker - ARC D-0, Konjic, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 2019.
Co-curator with Basak Senova and Branko Francechi.
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
– 1984 by George Orwell
The D-0Ark Underground Contemporary Art Biennial was initially programmed to be completed in 5 editions and designed to become an amalgamation of a military and contemporary art museum after completing its cycle. In this respect, the 5th edition is the “end” that is also the “new beginning”. “Do secret services dream of a museum?” underlines this transition that overlaps closures with the openings and transcends function with vision. The project is a unique example of how the contemporary art —whilst in a situation of insufficient financial resources, intermittent professional opportunities, and lack of political or social stability to maintain any of the art institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina— saved a military museum, thus preserving the archives from the past for the future. Furthermore, it suggests how different fields of knowledge and research can nurture one another other and create a common ground for social growth.
This edition presented works by Bella Rune, the Cuss Group, Jagoda Buić, Larissa Sansour, Mirko Marić, Momčilo Golub, Ramesch Daha, Renee Petropoulos, Vesna Pavlović, Yoko Ono, and Zlatko Kopljar. Following the pattern of the previous editions, the participating artists demonstrate different artistic methodologies, approaches, disciplines, media and generations.
Nevertheless, as a significant intersection point, criticality and research are inherent in all the featured works. One has to take into account that new works will merge and co-exist with the 148 works from the previous editions by addressing new perspectives, meanings, and viewing experiences to recognize the bunker as a single entity.
A publication summerizing all five editions and closing the biennial project was printed in 2021.
Cycle Festival, Berlin, Germany, Kopavogur, Reykjavik and Þingvellir national park, Iceland, 2018
Cryptopian States (Sovereign Colony/Inclusive Nation): This cycle of the festival took place at the residency of the Icelandic Embassy in Berlin, May 2018. Co-curator with Gudny Gudmundsdóttir and Sara S. Öldudóttir.
Participating artists: Adam Christensen, Aqqalu Berthelsen, Anna Júlía Friðbjörnsdóttir, Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Bryndís Björnsdóttir, Edward Fuglø, FRZNTE, Hulda Rós Gudnadottir, Halla Mia Ólafsdóttir, Hrefna Hörn Leifsdóttir + Sara Rosengarten, Inuk Silis Høegh, Ivalo Frank, Julius von Bismarck + Julian Charrière, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Jeannette Ehlers, Kolbeinn Hugi, Laali Lybert, Libia Castro + Olafur Olafsson, Magnús Sigurðarson, Ragnar Kjartansson, Magnea, Pétur Thomsen, Superflex, Steinunn Gunnlaugsdóttir, Sara Kramer, Unnar Örn.
Þjóð meðal þjóða / Inclusive Nation. Co-curator with Guðny Guðmundsdóttir and Sara S Öldudóttir
Venues: IÐNÓ, Mengi, Tjörnin, The Living Art Museum in Reykjavík; Gerðarsafn Kópavogur Art Museum, Kópavogur Swimming Pool, Kópavogur Public Library, Kópavogur City council, Midpunkt, Salurinn Concert Hall & Kópavogur Music School in Kópavogur, and Þingvellir national park, Iceland, 25–28.10.2018.
Performances by: Adam Christensen, Bendik Giske, Bryndís Björnsdóttir, Jeanette Ehlers, Steinunn Gunnlaugsdóttir, Adam Christensen, Countess Malaise, Elle-Maaret Valle, DJ SAKANA, DJ Uyaraqk, Björk Viggósdóttir, María Dalberg, Skerpla, Stellan Veloce, Tyler Friedman, Jesper Pedersen. Opera by Þráinn Hjálmarsson, Brynjar Sigurðarson and Veronika Sedlmair.
Works in public space by: Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Björk Viggósdóttir, Meriç Algün, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Magnus Sigurdarson, Steinunn Gunnlaugsdóttir, Unnar Örn, Jeannette Castioni & Þuríður Jónsdóttir.
Visual artists: Anna Júlía Friðbjörnsdóttir, Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Athena Farrokhzad, Bryndís Björnsdóttir, Magnus Sigurdarson, Melanie Ubaldo, Sara Kramer, Slavs and Tatars, Lap-See Lam & Wingyee Wu, Pinar Öğrenci, Meriç Algün, Þráinn Hjálmarsson, Brynjar Sigurðarson and Veronika Sedlmair, Steinunn Gunnlaugsdóttir, Hulda Rós Gudnadottir, Björk Viggósdóttir, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Julius von Bismarck + Julian Charrière, Unnar Örn.
Einungis allir / Exclusively Inclusive, Gerdarsafn, Kópavogur, Iceland, August 2018-January 2019. Curator.
Participating artists: Adam Christensen, Anna Júlía Friðbjörnsdóttir, Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir, Áki Ásgeirsson, Athena Farrokzhad, Bendik Giske, Björk Viggósdóttir, Bryndís Björnsdóttir, Childish Gambino, Countesse Malaise, Darri Lorenzen, Erla S. Haraldsdóttir, Haraldur Jónsson, Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir, Jeannette Castioni + Þuríður Jónsdóttir, Jeannette Ehlers, Jesper Pedersen, Julie Edel Hardenberg, Joseph Beuys, Julius von Bismarck + Julian Charrière, Karólína Eiríksdóttir, Kaj Duncan David, Lap-See Lam + Wingyee Wu, Libia Castro + Ólafur Ólafsson, Magnus Sigurdarson, Margrét H Blöndal, María Dalberg, Melanie Ubaldo, Meriç Algün, Pétur Eggertsso, Pinar Öğrenci, Rama Gottfried, Sara Kramer, SKERPLA, Slavs and Tatars, Steinunn Gunnlaugsdóttir, Stellan Veloce, Tyler Friedman, Unnar Örn, Uyarakq, Þórunn Gréta Sigurðardóttir, Þráinn Hjálmarsson + Brynjar Sigurðarson + Veronika Sedlmair.
Images, left to right: Dancing with whales, performance by Magnus Sigurdarsson, garden of the Icelandic ambassador's residency to Berlin. Julie Edel Hardenberg, Danish flag with human hair, Icelandic ambassador's residency Berlin. Exclusively Inclusive, exhibition view, Gerdarsafn, Koparvogur Artmuseum. Athena Farrokhzad, in background Pinar Örgenci
Sinopale 6, Sinop, Turkey, 2017. Tranposition/ Aktarım
Co-curator with Nike Baetzner and Melih Görgun.
Venues: Former Ice Factory at the harbour, Sinop Hal Buluşma Merkezi (former Market Hall), Dr. Rıza Nur Public Library, Chamber of Architects, Museum of Archeology, Museum of Ethnography, Former Glass Factory, Shops and Public Spaces in Sinop and Gerze (Originally due to open in 2016 and postponed to August 2017).
Participating artists: Anne Baumann, Sophie Baumgärtner, Aylin Çakıner, Bernhard Cella, Alvaro Campo, Canan Dağdelen, Ayşe Erkmen, Cevdet Erek, Philippe van Eetvelt, Wilhelm Frederking, Mürteza Fidan, Ulrike Grossarth, Frank Hagen, Petrit Halilaj, İpek Hamzaoğlu, Murat Haschu, Kristina Heinrichs, Nil İlkbaşaran, Gülsün Karamustafa, Sebastien Koerbs, Volkan Kızıltunç, Maria Lantz, leavinghomefunktion: Anne Knoedler, Johannes Foetsch, Elisabeth Oertel, Effy Zeniou, Kaupo Holmberg, Ulrike Mohr, Nina Naussed, Jonas Nobel, Raluca Popa, Julian Rosefeldt, Bella Rune, Ginan Seidl & Yalda Afsah, Esther Suarez Ruiz, Youssef Tabti
Survival Kit 9, Riga, Lativa, 2017. Becoming an Apple, a Crow, a Tree, a Cockroach, a Glacier, a Plant, a Mushroom, a Shell, a Bird, Algae
Co-curator with Solvita Krese and Inga Lāce.
Venue: Former building of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Latvia.
Participating artists: Maria Thereza Alves, Laurie Anderson, Jonathas de Andrade, Lotta Antonsson, Hildur Bjarnadóttir, Juris Boiko, Andris Eglītis, Ieva Epnere, Annika Eriksson, Andris Grīnbergs / Laima Žurgina, Jim Holyoak, Nona Inescu, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Christine Ödlund, Jean Painlevé, Andrej Polukord, Krišs Salmanis, Ehsan Ul Haq, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, James Webb, Gernot Wieland, Wong Kit Yi.
Momentum 8, Moss, Norway, 2015. Tunnel Vision
Co-curator with Birta Gudjonsdottír, Stefanie Hessler, Toke Lykkeberg.
Venues: Momentum Kunsthall, Gallery F15, public space.
Participating Artists: Hrafnhildur Arnardottir a.k.a Shoplifter, Brody Condon, Steingrimur Eyfjord, Valia Fetisov with Dzina Zhuk & Nicolay Spesivtsev, Johanna Heldebro, Minna L. Henriksson, Sofia Hultén, Ferdinand Ahm Krag, Agnieszka Kurant, Cristóbal Lehyt, Eva Löfdahl, Joanna Lombard, Lundahl & Seitl, Fujiko Nakaya, Christine Ödlund, Ola Pehrson, Edward Shenk, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Bjarni H. Thorarinsson, Sissel Tolaas, Ryan Trecartin, Steina (Steina Vasulka), Emanuel Vigeland, Julius von Bismarck, Zhala.
Reykjavik Arts Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland, 2012.(I)ndependent People: Collaborations and Artist Initiatives.
Link to archived site (National library of Iceland)
Curator.
Venues: The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik Art museum, The Icelandic National Gallery, Kling & Bang, The Nordic House, The Icelandic Sculptural Association, ÁSI Art Museum, Höfdi, projects in public space and off-site events. Independent venues include gallery I8, The National Theatre of Iceland and LÁ Art Museum.
Participating artists included: 1857, A Kassen, Anonymous, AIM Europe, Box, Endemi, Gokskøyr & Martens, The Icelandic Love Corporation, IC-98, Institutt for Degenerert Kunst, Jóna Hlíf Halldórsdottir & Hlynur Hallsson, Kling & Bang, Learning Site with Jamie Stapelton, M.E.E.H. (Magnus Sigudarsson, Elin Wikström, Erla Haraldsdottír, Haraldur Jónsson), Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas + MIT 4.333, Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S Davidsson, No Gods No Parents (UKS), Nyló, Raflóst, Steina Vasulka, Sofia Hultén & Ivan Seal, Superflex, The Artist Formerly Known as Geist, The Awareness Muscle Team, Steingrímur Eyfjörd & Ulrika Sparre, The New Beauty Council & Elin Strand Ruin, Thérèse Kristianson, Marianna Alves, Katarina Bonnevier, Torpedo, Útúrdúr, Wooloo.