May 11–November 24, 2019
Giardini
Venice
Italy
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.
Frame 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. Frame’s Director Raija Koli chaired the jury.
“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.
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 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.
Giovanna Esposito Yussif is a curator and researcher with a 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 a co-founder of NÆS - Nomad Agency/Archive of Emergent Studies.
Christopher Wessels is currently a curator with the Children’s Library Project at Åbo Akademi University in Turku. He is a founding member of The Museum of Impossible Forms where he is also one of the Artistic Directors, and he is a co-founder of Third Space (2014–2016), a collective of artists and curators based in Helsinki.
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 has received curatorial prizes such as Inéditos in 2011, and the Can Felipa and Nogueras Blanchard in 2012.
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 within the field through grants, visitor programmes and residencies, seminars and talks, exhibition collaborations and network platforms.
The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.
More information
Director Raija Koli, Frame Finland, T +358 44 728 9938, raija.koli [at] frame-finland.fi
Curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, T +49 1762 8781 966, ndikung [at] gmail.com
Associate Curator Giovanna Esposito Yussif, T +358 45 196 5077, giovanna.ey [at] gmail.com
Press inquiries
Head of Communications Laura Boxberg, Frame Finland, T +358 44 739 6079, laura.boxberg [at] frame-finland.fi
Press images available here.
