Miracle Workers Collective

  “If people have been engaging with the possible and ‘the way the world is today is the result of the possibles that they did’ as Sun Ra said, then what would be the results of imagining and engaging with the impossible?”, the collective asks.

In 2019 the Pavilion of Finland at the 58th Venice Biennale will host the Miracle Workers Collective (MWC). The MWC is formed and informed by artists, filmmakers, writers, intellectuals, performers, and activists.

Its founding members include Curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, artist and activist Outi Pieski, Associate Curator Giovanna Esposito Yussif, Associate Curator Christopher Wessels and spatial designer Lorenzo Sandoval.

“It is a great honour to work with and as a collective of intelligent and diligent individuals that make up the Miracle Workers Collective, in order to re-imagine The Finnish pavilion in Venice as a space of encounters and discourses, a space of negotiation and  reconciliation, a space for frictions and rehabilitation, a space in which aesthetics and ethics co-exist ”, says Curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.

The performative, discoursive, filmic and sonic arm of the Miracle Workers Collective will manifest itself as a series of punctuated iterations by public intellectual and writer Maryan Abdulkarim, writer and filmmaker Khadar Ahmed, writer and filmmaker Hassan Blasim, choreographer Sonya Lindfors, visual artist and musician Leena Pukki, visual artist and activist Martta Tuomaala, cinematographer Christopher L. Thomas and storyteller Suvi West, among others.

Open Call

Frame Contemporary Art Finland issued an open call for the Pavilion of Finland at the 58th edition of Venice Biennale. The five-member jury included Sabine Breitwieser, Director of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Independent Curator Natasha Ginwala, Artist Terike Haapoja and Maija Tanninen-Mattila, Director of the HAM Helsinki Art Museum. The jury was chaired by Frame’s Director Raija Koli.

“The proposal brings in a fresh and innovative approach towards the art scene and cultural producers in Finland while addressing urgent global issues”, states the jury.

Commissioner 

The exhibition in the Pavilion of Finland is commissioned and produced by Frame Contemporary Art Finland. Frame, an advocate for Finnish contemporary art, supports international initiatives, facilitates professional partnerships, and encourages critical development of the field through grants, visitor programme and residencies, seminars and talks, exhibition collaborations and network platforms.

The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.

Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung is artistic director of SAVVY Contemporary, editor in chief of SAVVY Journal, guest curator of Dak’Art Biennale 2018, and guest professor at Staedelschule Frankfurt, inter alia. He was curator at large for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel.

Outi Pieski (b.1973) is a Finnish-Saami visual artist from Utsjoki, the Saami area in northern Finland. In her practice there is often a strong connection between nature and the local culture. Her work combines Saami handicraft tradition of duodji and contemporary art to reopen conversations about the Saami people within Nordic discourses. After graduating from The Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 2000 Pieski has been exhibiting her work at the Southbank Centre in London (2017), facade of Helsinki Cathedral Chapel, Lux Helsinki (2017), Felleshus and Grimmuseum in Berlin (2015), Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in London (2014) and Gallery Korjaamo in Helsinki (2014) among several other venues. Pieski has made public art works in the Saami Parliament Houses both in Finland and Norway. She was Ars Fennica Award candidate (2015) and won the Fine Arts Academy of Finland award (2017).

Giovanna Esposito Yussif is a curator and researcher with background in art history, museology, and critical theory. In the past few years she has focused on collective models of inquiry, exercises of criticality, and processes of dissentient imaginations. She is co-founder of NÆS – Nomad Agency/Archive of Emergent Studies, a collective-connective research studio focusing on emergent and resilient dynamics of social organization, and is part of the collective committee of Rab-Rab Press. Giovanna has collaborated with diverse institutions such as Checkpoint Helsinki, Frame, HIAP, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Galería OMR, SITAC, among others. She is currently on a curatorial fellowship at Manifesta Foundation.

Christopher Wessels is currently a curator with the Children’s Library Project at Åbo Akademi University. He is founding member of the Museum of Impossible Forms M{if} where he is also one of the Artistic Directors, and he is co-founder of Third Space (2014–2016), a collective of artists and curators in Helsinki. Wessels is also a Cinematographer with seven feature films under his belt. His artistic and curatorial practices look at the un-silencing of counter hegemonic narratives and the building of counter hegemonic institutions with anti-racist, anti-sexist and class consciousness at its foundations.

Lorenzo Sandoval works in the crossing points of artistic practice, curatorial processes and spatial design. He has exhibited internationally as well attended residencies in Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Kenya. He received curatorial prizes such as Inéditos 2011, Can Felipa and Nogueras Blanchard 2012. He won the prize ‘Generación 2017’ presented in Madrid and the grant ‘DKV- Álvarez Margaride’, for his solo show ‘Shadow Writing (Algorith /Quipu)’ at LABoral. He works in a regular basis with Savvy Contemporary. Since 2015, he runs the fictional institution ‘The Institute for Endotic Research’. His recent research deals with the connections between computation, textiles, photography and domesticity.

#finlandinvenice2019

#miracleworkers

Image: (from left) Outi Pieski, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Giovanna Esposito Yussif, Christopher Wessels and Lorenzo Sandoval.

Padiglione Finlandia

Artists Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka Nissinen will present their first collaboration, The Aalto Natives, in the Finnish Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Opening on 13 May, the exhibition is the flagship contemporary art event included in Finland’s official centenary programme. Its patron is Mrs Jenni Haukio, the spouse of the President of Finland.   

The Aalto Natives explores national identity

Individually known for their irreverent and often comedic story-driven work, in which a humorous approach deceivingly belies a profound inquiry into contemporary issues of morality and power, Mellors and Nissinen will focus on various clichés surrounding Finnish history and national identity in The Aalto Natives.

The installation will be conceived for the architectural and ideological context of the Finnish Pavilion, designed by architect Alvar Aalto in 1956. Conflating ideas and tropes from archaeology, anthropology and science fiction, it will re-imagine Finnish society.

“The Aalto Natives explores themes such as the invention of national identity and the origins of culture by way of absurdist satire. Dressing its intellectual ambitions in purposefully silly gear, it both addresses the complex challenges our globalized world faces today, and pokes a cheeky kind of fun at the political correctness of its discourse,” says curator Xander Karskens.

In The Aalto Natives, the artists, who share an interest in the capacity of absurdism and transgression to critique power structures and the status quo, bring together Nissinen’s intuitive, do-it-yourself attitude to image production and his penchant for naïve musicality, with Mellors’ writing-based approach to filmmaking, and integration of sculpture.

“We wanted to take a cosmic perspective on nationalism — a comic-cosmic perspective on national identity, creation mythology, transnational movement, bureaucracy and class & racial stereotyping. We started with the idea of creation mythology – it seemed both absurd and necessary. We took a trip to the Ateneum in Helsinki, looked at  the Kalevala paintings and talked about the role of the egg-laying duck. We realized that Finland is part of a broader genus of egg-based civilizations,” say the artists.

The 57th Venice Biennale opens on 13 May

The Venice Biennale, located in the Giardini and Arsenale directly in the historic centre of Venice, will open to the public on 13 May. The Art Biennale, which rotates with the Architecture Biennale every other year, is expected to attract approximately half a million visitors. Along with the national exhibitions, the Biennale hosts a large main exhibition of 120 artists in the Italian Pavilion. This year the main exhibition Viva Arte Viva is curated by Christine Macel, Chief Curator of Centre Pompidou in Paris.

“The Venice Biennale is the oldest and one of the most prestigious international exhibitions of contemporary art, which always manages to capture the zeitgeist of the world in a magical way. The Aalto Natives exhibition is by far the most international production we have ever seen in the Finnish Pavilion. With their very special take on the global state of affairs, Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors will provide us with a viewpoint like no other,” says Raija Koli, Director of Frame and the commissioner of the exhibition.

The Aalto Natives to be exhibited at the Cobra Museum and Kiasma after Venice

The Aalto Natives installation will be seen both in the Netherlands and Finland right after  the Biennale ends in November. In addition to being presented at the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen in the Netherlands in December 2017, The Aalto Natives will be included as part of a major exhibition featuring Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki in spring 2018.

Padiglione Paesi Nordici

The exhibition 'Mirrored' will be presented in the 2017 edition of the Nordic Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia. 'Mirrored' is a group exhibition featuring works by six artists from different generations: Siri Aurdal, Nina Canell, Charlotte Johannesson, Jumana Manna, Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki, and Mika Taanila.

'The artists in "Mirrored" present a mapping of connections that override the national and regional boundaries, and instead track a more multi-faceted view of how artistic practice may connect', says curator Mats Stjernstedt.

The exhibition 'Mirrored' attempts to avoid a topical approach, to focus on challenging a self-image reflected in, or stereotypes projected on, the Nordic countries. 'Mirrored' thus suggest a 'placeless place', to borrow Guiliana Bruno’s allegory on mirrors.

Siri Aurdal (b.1937), Charlotte Johannesson (b.1943), and Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki (b.1950) are innovators who, to some extent, have created and articulated the artistic realms they later came to work within. All three artists can be described as atypical for the Nordic Pavilion’s extended architecture, as much landscape and outdoor experience as an enclosed space. Their works are examples of urban art and urbanity that was ahead of its time in exploring industrial material, digital space, or design experiments with moving images. Aurdal’s module-based sculptures challenge the sculpture medium and establish new premises for it. Johannesson took her cue from traditional textile crafts and translated the logical setup of tapestries into computer-based pixels. Before giving up his film practice, Myllymäki produced forty-four super-8 films from 1976 to 1985; these films explore a wide range of elements from graphic design to performative actions.

A similar interest in urban subject matter, expressed, for instance, through material transformation or political content, intersects the works of the following artists: Mika Taanila (b.1965) is primarily recognised for producing temporal artworks in film, video and sound. For the present exhibition, Taanila uses montage technique to create a cut-out project in cinematic literature. Nina Canell’s (b.1979) experimental mode of relating to sculpture and installation, considers the place and displacement of energy. However, like Taanila’s film and sound work, they have a temporal quality, as Canell converts sculpture’s often fixed form into open-ended processes. The works of Jumana Manna (b.1987) explore how power is articulated through relationships, often focusing on the body and materiality in relation to narratives of nationalism, and histories of place. In her sculptural work, Manna indirectly unfolds representation, creating a visual language of absence and substitutes.

The Nordic Pavilion 

The Nordic Pavilion, by Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn, was completed in 1962 and has since been a space for collaboration between three nations – Sweden, Finland and Norway. For the past three biennials, a format was introduced which involved the solo commissioning of a project by each country in turn. For the period 2017–2021, the art in the Nordic Pavilion will be presented as a joint project, where the three countries are represented on equal terms. The countries will alternate as principal commissioner and manager of activities at the Nordic Pavilion as follows: 2017, Moderna Museet, Sweden; 2019, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Finland; 2021, Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA).

Siri Aurdal 

 Siri Aurdal (b.1937) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. Aurdal has exhibited at Oslo Kunstforening, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, and Murray Guy, New York, and has participated in group exhibitions at Arkiv för dekorativ konst / Skissernas Museum, Lund, the 15th Biennial, Antwerp, Kunsthall Oslo, and Stavanger Kunsthall. A major sculptural work, Wavelengths – Recomposed, was installed in Oslo’s Vigeland park in 2016, as a joint project between Kunstnernes Hus and OSLO PILOT, Kulturetaten, the City of Oslo.

Nina Canell 

 Nina Canell (b.1979) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Canell has exhibited at Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Hamburger Bahnhof, Camden Arts Centre, London, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Arko Art Center, Seoul, and in 2017 at Museum Tamayo, Mexico City. She has participated in various group exhibitions at several art institutions, including Biennale de Lyon, Sydney Biennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Liverpool Biennale, Tate Liverpool, and Manifesta 7, Rovereto. Canell was an Edstrandska Stiftelsen laureate in 2011, and was awarded the ars viva Prize for Visual Arts the same year.

Charlotte Johannesson 

 Charlotte Johannesson (b.1943) lives and works in Skanör, Sweden. She has exhibited at Galerie S:t Petri, Lund, Konstmuseet, Ystad, Galleri Glemminge, Gelmmingebro, Galerie Green, Malmö, Dexter Bang Sinister, Kunsthall Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, and Galleri Petra Lilja, Malmö, and has participated in various group exhibitions, including the 32nd São Paolo Biennale, the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Barbican Art Gallery, London, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Pratt Center, New York, Academy of Art College Gallery, San Francisco, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, Air Gallery, New York, Malmö Konsthall, and Kulturhuset, Stockholm. Johannesson was awarded the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts scholarship in 1976. In 2016, she was a laureate of the Aase & Richard Björklund Fund.

Jumana Manna 

 Jumana Manna (b.1987) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She has exhibited at SculptureCenter, New York, Chisenhale Gallery, London, and Beirut Art Center. She has participated in group exhibitions at Kunsthalle Wien, the Liverpool Biennial, the 20th Biennale of Sydney, Marrakech Biennale 6, the Jerusalem Show VII, Al Ma’mal Foundation, and Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Bærum. Manna’s films have been screened at festivals and institutions such as M+, Hong Kong, the 54th Viennale International Film Festival, Guggenheim, New York, Filmlab: Days of Cinema, Ramallah, Tate Modern, London, Performa13 Biennial, New York, and IFFR Rotterdam. She was awarded the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Palestinian Artist Award in 2012, and is the ars viva Prize for Visual Arts laureate in 2017. In 2017, she is engaged in commissions for the Satellite Program 10, Jeu de Paume, Paris and CAPC Bordeaux, and for The HighLine, New York.

Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki 

 Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki (b.1950) is a filmmaker based in Hämeenlinna, Finland. Myllymäki’s films have been screened widely at festivals and art institutions in Finland and internationally, including Unica, Baku, The Kitchen, New York, Hämeenlinna Art Museum, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Rajaton Elokuva Event, Joensuu, Avanto Festival, Kiasma, Helsinki, Nordisk Panorama, Oulu, VIDEO-EX, Zürich, Kauniita uneksijoita-event, Kino Kaiku, Malmitalo, Helsinki, Avant Goes Witty, Karlstad, IFFR, Rotterdam, Kinos Festival, Lahti, AAVE Festival, Helsinki, Rakkautta ja Anarkiaa Film Festival , Helsinki, and VIDEOMEDEJA Film Festival, Novi Sad.

Mika Taanila 

 Mika Taanila (b.1965) lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Taanila has exhibited at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Migrosmuseum, Zürich, and Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe. He has participated in the following selected group exhibitions: documenta (13), Kassel, Aichi Triennale, Nagoya, Manifesta 4, Frankfurt-am-Main, and Shanghai Biennale. Taanila’s films have been screened at numerous international film festivals and special events, including the Toronto International Film Festival, IFFR Rotterdam, Berlinale, CPH:DOX, International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand, Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä, and Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage. In 2015, he was presented with the Ars Fennica Award.

Mats Stjernstedt has been Director of Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo since 2011, and was appointed Director for Malmö Konsthall from January 2017.

Mats Stjernsted per i Padiglioni Nordici

Mats Stjernstedt è stato nominato curatore per il Padiglione dei Paesi Nordici (Norvegia, Finlandia e Svezia), ne ha dato notizia il Moderna Museet 

English

Mats Stjernstedt will curate the joint exhibition of Finland, Norway and Sweden in the Nordic Pavilion at the 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2017. The exhibition marks the rejuvenation of the Nordic collaboration between the three countries.

The art in the Nordic Pavilion will be presented as a joint project, where the three countries are represented on equal terms. As before, the countries will take turns as principal commissioner and manager of activities at the Nordic Pavilion as follows:

2017: Moderna Museet, Sweden

2019: Frame Visual Art Finland, Finland

2021: Office for Contemporary Art (OCA), Norway

Moderna Museet has thus appointed Mats Stjernstedt to curate the Nordic Pavilion in 2017. Stjernstedt is the artistic director of Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo since 2011. He has curated numerous exhibitions internationally over the years.

“Being asked to assemble an exhibition for the Nordic Pavilion is an honour and a challenge. I appreciate being entrusted this assignment and look forward to combining my experience with research over the next few months. I also look forward to presenting interesting artists who are active in the Nordic countries, within the compelling framework of La Biennale di Venezia,” says Mats Stjernstedt.

The Nordic Pavilion for the Venice Biennial was completed in 1962 and has since been a space for collaboration between three nations – Sweden, Finland and Norway. Built on a plot between the pavilions of the United States and Denmark, it is situated in the Biennale grounds at Giardini in Venice. For the last three biennials of 2011, 2013 and 2015, a format was developed which involved the solo commissioning by each country of a project. For the period 2017–2021 the agreement entailing that all three countries are represented on equal terms, will be resumed.

Frame Visual Art Finland received 96 proposals

Frame Visual Art Finland received 96 proposals for the exhibition to be staged in the Pavilion of Finland at the forthcoming Venice Biennale in 2017.

In its Open Call Frame sought project proposals that examine independence as something formed through complex processes of dependence. Applicants were also requested to consider how the logic of exclusion, forgetting and silencing is recognised as foundational in the construction of national identity.

“The curators and artists who submitted proposals had developed interesting concepts from a wide variety of perspectives and in a diverse range of artistic media. The proposals were conceptually diverse and of a high level of quality,” says Raija Koli, Director of Frame.

The proposals are being processed by an international jury chaired by Raija Koli, Director of Frame. Her fellow jury members are Taru Elfving, Head of Programme at Frame, Curator Katerina Gregos, Professor Sarat Maharaj, Leevi Haapala, Director of the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Curator Maaretta Jaukkuri and artist Patrik Söderlund.

Padiglione Finlandia storia / history

Uscendo dal Padiglione Centrale si trova alla sinistra il Padiglione della Finlandia, nato nel 1959 come struttura provvisoria ideato da Alvar Aalto, nel più moderno spirito ecologistico.


2013 — Antti Laitinen, Terike Haapoja (Curatores: Mika Elo, Marko Karo Harri Laakso)
2011 — Vesa-Pekka Rannikko (Curatore: Laura Köönikkä)
2009 —
2007 — Maaria Wirkkala
2005 — Jaakko Heikkilä
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