Don’t be so emotional by Nika Rukavina | Performing Arts – Bozar

‘Don’t be so emotional’ is a sentence that was repeated to the Croatian artist Nika Rukavina throughout her childhood and which had a great deal of impact on her behaviour and inability to deal with emotions. 😒
During her performance at Bozarlast November she carved the sentence in stone to replicate the pain that was inflicted on her by those words and then by breaking the stone she liberated herself from past traumas.
In a second part of the performance, the audience were invited to choose their own sentence, write it on stone and break it in order to experience their own symbolic liberation.
Emotional.

Big thanx to Ann Geeraerts and Bozar team for having my Don’t be so emotional perfromance and the great people that came to be a part of it! It was so special and emotional 😊

Ostrale Bennale Dresden

https://www.ostrale.de/en/Archive/OSTRALE-O21.html

OSTRALE Biennale O21, Breathturn

13. International Exhibition of Contemporary Arts
Dresden 01.07. – 03.10.2021

Robotron-Kantine
01.07. – 03.10.2021
Zinzendorfstraße 5, 01069 Dresden
Wed – Fri 10am to 6pm and 6pm to 7pm evening ticket
Sat – Sun 11am to 7pm and 7pm to 8pm evening ticket
Entrance fee: 15 EUR (reduced price: 10 EUR)
Timeslot-reservation obligatory
Reserve your ticket here

Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße
14.07. – 03.10.2021
Bautzner Str. 112A, 01099 Dresden
Mon – Sun 10am to 6pm
Prices and tickets here

Stadtentwässerung / Kläranlage Kaditz
06.07. – 03.10.2021
Scharfenberger Str. 152, 01139 Dresden
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays at 10am, 1pm and 3pm
Visit through guided tours with registration
Book your guided tour here

OSTRALE.Basis Übigau
17.07. – 03.10.2021
Rethelstraße 45, 01139 Dresden
Tue – Sat 12am to 6pm

BREATHTURN

In the rivers north the future / I cast the net (Paul Celan)

Being human is not enough, and already too much. Sometimes we act like robots, but want to feel like animals. How can we breathe and rethink work and pleasure, art and industry, politics and poetics, when everything flows into each other, like streams into a river? Is the whole planet our home or just the square meters we occupy?

Between disorientation and reorientation, to find new directions and avoid dead ends, we need to breathe differently. We have to change our perspective and pay attention to those at the borders of our field of vision: the misfits, the oppressed, and the unknown, but also biospheres, buildings and social spaces. At the gate of a new, post-pandemic era, exhausted but hopeful, curious and ready for a change, the OSTRALE in 2021 explores the ways we coexist with our fellow humans, animals and our complex environment.

Looking at the environmental, social and economic dynamics of the last decade (or, to put it bluntly, “the end of the world as we know it”), it is increasingly clear that the imperative of continuous growth and development is no longer a sustainable vision for our future, if we want one at all.

But even though more and more individuals come to this realization, the greater systems that govern our world and our societies seem less willing to change their ways. Sometimes it feels as if we are caught in a current against which it is pointless to fight, but swimming upstream seems more important than ever as we do not have as much time as would normally be needed for such fundamental cultural shifts.

The role of art in this context is problematic: should it serve as a means of to develop sensibility and empathy for a deeper understanding of these questions? Or would this be a restriction of artistic freedom and an invitation to propaganda? Is art a luxury of the developed world that should be abolished first when we reduce our consumption and limit our material needs? Or is it, on the contrary, the most important tool to survive and maintain our hopes in an otherwise hopeless and frightening world?

The OSTRALE Biennale in Dresden is the third largest international exhibition of contemporary art in Germany, which took place every year from 2007 on during the summer months and was changed into a biennale in 2017. It is not a sales exhibition per se, which gives us the freedom to discuss socially relevant topics regardless of market developments.

As “venue pioneers”, the OSTRALE opens up unused industrial and cultural brownfields. First the exhibitions have taken place at various venues of the former slaugtherhouse complex of Ostragehege in Dresden, as well as other similar post-industrial venues all over Europe. After leaving the Ostragehege area, the OSTRALE Biennale in 2019 took place at the Historical Tobacco Factory f6 in the Striesen district and at 5 other decentralised locations in Dresden. This last edition welcomed more than 30.000 visitors in just over two months, 9.000 of them being students from Dresden and all over Saxony.

For the OSTRALE Biennale O21, thanks to the generous support of the real estate company Gerchgroup AG, a unique chance has been given the organizers to present the exhibition for the first time in the very heart of Dresden in 2021. The building is a witness of the Eastern Modernism („Ostmodern”) and an often overlooked part of the architectural and social history of the city of Dresden.

The Robotron Kantine is the former company restaurant and one of the last standing buildings of the already demolished Robotron computer factory complex, once a crown jewel of technological innovation, but also of architectural optimism, in Dresden and in the whole DDR in the 1960s and 1970s. However, after the closure of the factory, its fate has been somewhat troublesome. For a while, it has served as a venue for various cultural activities and also as a rehearsal room for the nearby Semperoper, but in the last few years it has been standing empty in an ever deteriorating state. The discussion about its possible reactivation gained more momentum during the preparation phase of Dresden’s application for the title of European Capital of Culture for 2025, in frame of which several new concepts were developed for the building. Now, as the city of Dresden is no longer in competition for the title, the future of the Robotron Kantine remains uncertain. Opening it up through art can pave the way to revive it as a cultural venue.

The year 2021 will see the first important steps in this direction, as Dresden’s two leading organisations for contemporary visual arts, the Kunsthaus Dresden and the OSTRALE – Centre for Contemporary Art are staging temporary events in and around the building. First, artists invited by the Kunsthaus Dresden will activate the facades and the outer areas of the Kantine with their international art project North East South West. Then during the summer, the Kantine will serve as the main venue of the OSTRALE Biennale O21, presenting artworks from around 160 artists from all over the world, selected by an international team of curators from Croatia, Lithuania and Hungary, with the leaders of OSTRALE accompanying the jury.

Another important venue of the OSTRALE Biennale O19 will be the Stadtentwässerung Dresden (the city’s waste water facility), right in the vicinity of the OSTRALE Center in Dresden-Übigau. The fascinating sites of the facility will serve as an exciting backdrop to the exhibited artworks, bringing science, industry and visual arts into an unusual dialogue. With its long-time engagement in environmental and climate issues and its programs to engage and educate young generations about the responsible handling of wastewater and natural resources, Stadtentwässerung Dresden comes as a natural partner for OSTRALE’s current program, which also deals with the questions of our relationships to rivers, water, sustainability, and the broader connections between society, environment and the arts.

This theme is also the focus of Flowing Connections, a cultural cooperation co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the European Union, that plays a vital role in the organisation of the OSTRALE Biennale O21, especially when it comes to the curatorial process, the preparation and the opening of the exhibition. It also enables us to take a selection of the artworks presented in Dresden to exhibitions in Budapest, Rijeka/Split/Zagreb (Croatia) and the European Capital of Culture Kaunas (Lithuania) in the year 2022. The exhibitions are accompanied by other activities such as an artist in residence programme, workshops and symposia on issues of digitalisation, sustainability, communication strategies and inclusion.

Since April 2020, the OSTRALE.basis in Übigau Dresden is our new headquarters and an important venue for the artistic residencies of the Biennale! Every year, OSTRALE welcomes artists from all over Europe in its artist apartment, where they can stay and do their artistic research. The OSTRALE.basis is not only the “backstage” of the Biennale, but is also meant to be a social space for the community of Übigau where we plan to host a cinema salon, literary readings, artistic workshops and eco-sustainable activities. The community is invited to help shape the cultural program and participate in this process of urban renewal to activate this district with a vibrant cultural life. At the moment, “The Future Project” is running in the garden of the OSTRALE.basis, a series of creative workshops with students from the Art University of Dresden and Wroclaw for the creation of a sustainable art garden together with the children of the local children’s house Sonnenschein. The OSTRALE.basis also offers local artists a platform for exhibition and project development.

Another cooperation partner is the Bautzner Straße Memorial Museum. A tour of the only original Stasi prison in Saxony shows how the state’s repressive apparatus tried to eliminate its political opponents. The exhibition and impressive archive materials in the former office of the Dresden Stasi chief reveal the everyday life of the security service. The density of these historical spaces, combined with interactive exhibitions and eyewitness accounts, is unique in Germany. The intervention of the OSTRALE Biennale O21 confronts the historical context of the location with international contemporary artworks and aims to establish a dialogue between the past, the present and the future as well.

The 2021 edition of the OSTRALE Biennale presents more than 140 artists from 34 countries, Germany, Lithuania, Croatia, Hungary, Sweden, Serbia, Turkey, India, Northern Macedonia, Singapore, Italy, France, Togo, Netherlands, Russia, USA, Poland, Austria, China, Ukraine, Slovenia, Moldova, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Finland, Bangladesh, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, Peru, Kosovo, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, UK.

Nils Agdler & Timo Menke (SE), Emil Andersson (SE), Sanja Anđelković (RS), Katharina Andress (DE), Aleksas Andriuškevičius (LT), Aurelija Maknytė (LT), Seçkin Aydin (TR), Devadeep Bani Sarmah Gupta (IN), Gildo Bavčević (HR), Dávid Biró (HU), Bojan Mrđenović (HR), Jana Borsche (DE), Viktor Brim (DE), Janos Brückner (HU), Gaby Burckhardt (DE), Daniel Burkhardt (DE), Nadja Buttendorf (DE), Elena Chemerska (MK), Daniel Chong (SG), István Csákány (HU), Mauro Cuppone (IT), Márta Czene (HU), Etienne de France (FR), Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani (TG-DE), Tibor Dieters (NL), Alexei Dmitriev (RU), Katerina Duda (HR), Gabriele Engelhardt (DE), Lucy Cordes Engelman (US), Anna Fabricius (HU), Zsolt Ferenczy (HU), Mona Freudenreich (DE), Márk Fridvalszki (HU), Friederike & Uwe (DE), Áron Galambos (HU), Nadia Galbiati (IT), Mindaugas Gapševičius (LT), Gabrielė Gervickaitė (LT), Bronė Sofija Gideikaitė (LT), Harald Gnade (DE), Goran Škofić (HR), Igor Grubić (HR), Michael Grudziecki (PL-DE), Marko Gutić Mižimakov (HR),  László Győrffy (HU), Péter Tamás Halász (HU), Willem Harbers (NL), Michael Heindl (AT),  Roland Hermanns (DE), Di Hu (CN), Ana Hušman (HR), doplgenger (Isidora Ilić & Boško Prostran, RS), Alexander Jakimenko (UA-DE), Yuki Jungesblut (DE), Nikita Kadan (UA), Eginhartz Kanter (DE), Anuschka Kilian-Buck (DE), Neža (SI), Eugenijus Kolmogorcevas (LT), KOLXOZ (Maxim Polyakov, Anton Polyakov & Viktor Vejvoda, MD & CZ), Vikenti Komitski (BG), Endre Koronczi (HU), Volker Kreidler (DE), Áron Kútvölgyi-Szabó (HU),  Marcus Lerviks (FI), Irma Leščinskaitė (LT), Glorija Lizde (HR), Larion Lozovoy (UA), Dean Maassen (DE), Éva Magyarósi (HU), Firoz Mahmud (BD), Casey McKee (US), Toni Meštrović (HR), studio ASYNCHROME (Marleen Leitner & Michael Schitnig, AT), Niko Mihaljevic (HR), Péter Lichter (HU), Ivan Milenković (RS), Judit Lilla Molnár (HU), Sarvenaz Mostofey (IR), Petra Mrša (HR), Christoph & Sebastian Mügge (SE), Sali Muller (LU), Csaba Nemes (HU), Thomas Neumaier (DE), Klára Orosz (HU), Andrea Palašti (RS), Lav Paripović (HR), Predrag Pavić (HR), Julija Pociūtė (LT), Renata Poljak (HR), Ghenadie Popescu (MD), Marko Rodics (HU), Ivan Ramljak (HR), Farid Rasulov (AZ), Jens Rausch (DE), Melanie Richter (DE), Jana Rinchenbachová (CZ), Fátima Rodrigo (PE), Sandra Rosenstiel & Hanne Lange (DE), Nika Rukavina (HR), Neli Ružić (HR), Catherine Sanke (DE), Remis Ščerbauskas (LT), Philipp A. Schäfer (DE), Jan Sebesta (CZ), Driton Selmani (XK), Stipan Tadić (HR), Lana Stojićević (HR), Kamen Stoyanov (BU), Attila Szabó (HU), Ottó Szabó (HU), Eszter Szabó (HU), Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga (US), Kamilla Szij (HU), Hajnal Szolga (HU), József Szolnoki (HU), Casper ter Heerdt (NL), Ivana Tkalčić (HR), Laura Erika Urbanski (DE), Philipp Valenta (DE), Arturas Valiauga (LT), Daina Vanagaitė-Belžaikienė (LT), Vangjush Vellahu (AL), Xueying Wang (GB), Guido Weggenmann (DE), Anette Wörner (DE), xtro realm (Gideon Horváth & Rita Süveges & Anna Zilahi, HU), Dia Zékány (HU), Yinglin Zhou (CN), Die Zukunft – Students of the Art Academies of Dresden and Wrocław (Ida Sielska, Jarosław Słomski, Taina L. Bemmerlein & Veronika Pfaffinger, PL & DE)

Talking (about) Images exibition opening in Trieste 28th November

After its first stage at Galerija Kortil in Rijeka and Kunsthalle Graz, the reflection on the role and power of images in contemporary society, between individual consciousness and mass culture, proposed by Talking (about) Images continues in Trieste, at MLZ Art Dep gallery, from September 28th to November 18th 2018.
The project, curated by Francesca Lazzarini and Marta Rovetta for Cultural Inventory, with the support of the Region of Styria, develops through four exhibitions and as many open laboratories with eight artists of various nationalities and different means of expression – The Cool Couple, Severin Hirsch, Kate Howlett-Jones, Neža Knez, Maryam Mohammadi, Nika Rukavina, Alessandro Sambini and Christoph Szalay -, exploring the relationship between images and the reality they represent, the mechanisms that regulate their production and diffusion, the ambiguities that they can generate, but also their potential as a universal and shared language.
In fact, unlike words, images do not require translations to be read by people in different part of the world, being apparently a limitless tool for global communication. Nevertheless, their interpretation is anything but objective: images are intrinsically ambiguous. Due to their power of persuasion, images play a key function in the capitalist and globalized system: they are vehicles for ideology and one of the main weapons in the struggle over an arena of strategic importance today, the collective imaginary.
So Talking (about) Images focuses on images as an autonomous language, as in the work Everyday by The Cool Couple, which assembles meme GIFs reflecting on the influence on our existences of “secondary visuality”, the installation Imag(in)e Ka-mi-ze by Neža Knez, on images as a children’s’ mean to design a better future, the work Lemmings by Severin Hirsch, that spurs for an independent use of images and texts conceived as equal symbols, and Maryam Mohammadi’s Memories Icon, that explores the role of images in shaping personal memories as well as unconscious visual cultural effects; at the same time, the show reflects on the potentialities and limits of this language: on its interaction with other means of expression, as in Kate Howlett-Jones’s Pocket Dictionary of the World’s Most Iconic Photographs, where every image-entry is defined by a poetic text resulting from mixed commentaries found from the internet and the installation It’s not your time to get your angel’s wings just yet through which Christoph Szalay takes the iconic story of Titanic, and its video game re-enactment as a starting point to resonate on representation and on the negotiation of the real, as well as on the responsibility related to its production and fruition, as in the video and the performance by Nika Rukavina, The Illusion of Truth, on the propagandistic and ideological use of images and the passive reception of their flow, and in Spelling Book by Alessandro Sambini, which presents the analog outcomes of a machine learning process raising questions about the meaning of education and the responsibility of image-making.
After the first opening in Rijeka, the video installation The Images of our Dreams by Discipula has been included in the exhibition, building speculative scenarios concerning images and their relationship with human beings.
In collaboration with Galerija Kortil, Kunsthalle Graz, MLZ Art Dep, Italian Cultural Institute in Slovenia, Austrian Cultural Forum Ljubljana, POIUYT and Association of Art historian of Rijeka.

Talking (about) Images
Curated by Francesca Lazzarini and Marta Rovetta
MLZ Art Dep
Trieste, from September 28th to November 18th 2018
Opening: Friday, September 28th, 6:30 p.m.
Hours: from Thursday to Saturday, 5:00 – 7:30 p.m. and by appointment