ARTIVAL TALKS: CURATING ACROSS CULTURES

 

Time: 28.9.2023, 17.00 – 18.30 EET
Address: online on Zoom
Language: English

In this thought-provoking ARTIVAL Talk, we delve into the realm of curating across cultures, exploring the dynamic interplay between cultural diversity and representation in the Nordic art field. We explore the challenges faced by institutions in curating exhibitions and programmes that accurately reflect the diverse range of voices, perspectives, and artistic expressions present in contemporary society. By recognizing the need for inclusivity and diversity, we discuss strategies for actively involving underrepresented artists and communities.

The talk also highlights the difference between institutional curating and freelance curating, examining the opportunities and limitations within each approach. We discuss the concept of freedom in curating and its implications for responsible curation, emphasising the need to balance artistic expression with ethical considerations. We discuss the power of curating as a means to challenge established systems, confront biases, and disrupt conventional narratives. By promoting critical dialogue and open-mindedness, this talk aims to foster an environment where diverse values, experiences, and beliefs are respected and celebrated.

STREAMING LINK

Topic: ARTIVAL TALKS: Curating Across Cultures
Time: Sep 28, 2023 05:00 PM Helsinki

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82483258408?pwd=dE4wVktEakhNSVNLQW5TTmkzQUZuQT09

Meeting ID: 824 8325 8408
Passcode: 405380

INVITED SPEAKERS

• Keynote & facilitation by Ali Akbar Mehta

Ali Akbar Mehta (b.1983, Mumbai) is a Transmedia artist, curator, researcher, and writer. Driven by desires for knowing and to create an equal world, his research-based practice is to create immersive, interactive archival projects that map knowledges through a multifocal lens of violence, conflict, and trauma. Such projects investigate and offer countermeasures to forms of violence and conflict generated as everyday collateral, by investigating notions of collective identities and making visible historically repressed subjects.

He is a co-founder of the Museum of Impossible Forms, was its Co-Artistic Director (2018-2020), and through it, the co-curator of the Helsinki Biennale 2023: New Directions May Emerge. In 2022 he was invited to Documenta(15) as part of the Party Office collective to develop a discursive program called ‘Archives as Contemporary Object X’, and is pursuing his Doctoral research at Aalto University investigating (infra)structural and performative relations between online archives and its users. His work as performances, installations and talks have been exhibited at Taide Museo ARTSI, Gallen-Kallela Museum, Ainola Museum, Visavuori Museum, Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Venice Biennale Research Pavillion, Mänttä Art Festival, ONOMA Summer Exhibition (Fiskars), Myymälä2, Third Space, TAO Art Gallery, Art Heritage, Galerie Mirchandani+Steinruecke, among others. Several of his projects, such as War List Codex, Purgatory EDIT: Doomscroll Archives, 256 Million Colours of Violence, Ballad of the Lost Utopian Meadow, and Central Park Archives, exist as permanent ongoing online projects.

Website: aliakbarmehta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/aliakbar.mehta
Facebook: www.facebook.com/aliakbarmehta

• Yvapurü Samaniego Bonnin is a visual artist working in a range of mixed media. He has been trained between Asunción, Barcelona, New York & Helsinki, exhibiting since 1996. Has studied in Arts in Paraguay, and at the New York Institute of Photography, USA.

His expressive versatility unfolds as a draftsman, painter, sculptor, photographer and performer. He has a long working experience in interior and furniture design. In 2015 he was selected to participate at the XX Kuvataide Viikot – International Contemporary Fair of Art in Finland, where the Pekilo Art Museum added one of his artworks to their private collection. His interest in art education brought him to work in Annantalo Art Centre as an art teacher the year 2016, the same summer he was also working there as an artist in residency. Yvapurü has created several artistic projects and workshops for Design District Helsinki, Swedish Culture Institute, Goethe Zentrum, Ihana Helsinki Festival, Kolibrí Festivaali, Latin American Film Festival and Kunsthaus Jägermeister.

He has exhibited in individual and collective exhibitions in Argentina, Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Nepal, Paraguay, Spain, England and in the United States. He is a member of the Council of Global Art Point, AVISPA & Culture for All, and collaborates with many cultural associations to promote Latin American Arts and Literature in the Nordic countries. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland.

Website: www.yvapuru.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Yvapuru
Instagram: www.instagram.com/Yvapuru_art

• Tina Lorien
Born and raised in Denmark, Tina spent twenty years living and working in Italy where she gained a great amount of knowledge about the visual arts, working manually with different material sculptures for a well-known Danish artist. In her own gallery spaces in Frederiksberg and Bornholm, Tina now keenly and exquisitely exhibits artists working with sculpture, ceramics, painting, drawing and photography from all over the world, many of whom live in Denmark. She is passionate about social inclusion and specifically the treatment of racialised minorities and migrants.

Website: gallerie-lorien.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Gallerie.Lorien
Instagram: www.instagram.com/gallerielorien

• Nina Toppila – Executive Director at Kunsthalle, Helsinki

Nina Toppila has been the Executive Director of Kunsthalle Helsinki since 2022. Nina is an art historian, a curator and producer, and holds degrees in both art history and organizational leadership. Additionally, Nina has conducted various kinds of art projects, both in Finland and internationally, and has functioned previously as Executive Director at the visual arts organisation Pro Artibus (2019-2021) and artist-run co-op Gallery Forum Box (2011-2018). As a curator her focus is on political art and artivism. Nina was the co-founder and manager of a political film and art festival called Lens Politica, which ran for ten years in Helsinki during 2005-2015.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ninatoppila
Website: taidehalli.fi/en
Instagram: www.instagram.com/taidehalli_helsinki
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taidehalli

ABOUT ARTIVAL TALKS

ARTIVAL Talks are organised by IMMART, Nordic Culture Point and Globe Art Point as a part of ARTIVAL RE:CONNECT – a Nordic multilingual cultural festival taking place across the Nordic region in 2023. The festival brings a widely diverse array of actors together in a sustainable manner to co-create and reflect on issues of inclusion and belonging with exhibitions, performances, talks, workshops, recitals, and more, at a time when many of us around the globe are striving to reconnect, to ourselves, our families, and our communities in one way or another.

The Talks are a collection of live-streamed and virtual discussions, debates and conversations on the themes of ARTIVAL which places artists, the artistic process and advocacy at the center. The main aim of ARTIVAL Talks, which began in May 2023, is to facilitate gaining a clearer understanding of different processes, perspectives and viewpoints that exist in Nordic artscapes, by bringing artists, cultural workers, activists, human rights experts, public officials and civil society together to exchange ideas and share experiences of their successes (and failures), good (and bad) practices, and the opportunities (and challenges) present in the broad landscape of the Nordic arts and cultural sector.

Read about ARTIVAL at www.immart.dk/artival2023.

PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE TALKS

27 May – A Call to Reconnect, Copenhagen DK
24 August – Writing Process and Practice, Helsinki, FI
1 September – Conducting Political Advocacy, Helsinki, FI
28 September – Curating Across Cultures, online
12 October – Social Sustainability, online
26 October – Art, Mobility and Migration, Helsinki, FI

All talks will be livestreamed and available for viewing after the event.

IMMART
www.immart.dk
Facebook Network: www.facebook.com/groups/104286233304333
Instagram: www.instagram.com/immartdk/

Nordic Culture Point
www.nordiskkulturkontakt.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/nordiskkulturkontakt
Instagram: www.instagram.com/nordiskkulturkontakt/

Globe Art Point
www.globeartpoint.fi
Facebook: www.facebook.com/globeartpoint
Instagram: www.instagram.com/globeartpoint/