Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media
May 13–June 19, 2022
From May 13 through June 19 over 45 participating institutions, galleries and project spaces are taking part in the second edition of the düsseldorf photo+ Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media. An extensive program of more than 50 exhibitions and events hosted by the Düsseldorf art scene sheds light on current themes and challenges in the field of photographic and time-based media.
The main exhibition, Think We Must, curated by Pola Sieverding and Asya Yaghmurian, forms the thematic focal point of the Biennale. Featuring works by Adam Broomberg with CAConrad & Gersande Spelsberg, Natalie Czech, Martine Gutierrez, Shadi Habib Allah, Estefanía Landesmann, Mischa Leinkauf, Helmar Lerski, Dana Levy, Adrien Missika, Frida Orupabo, Walid Raad, Slavs and Tatars, Hito Steyerl, Mikhail Tolmachev, Mario García Torres and David Wojnarowicz, the exhibition explores how thinking with photographic images can constitute and alter reality, history and social discourse.
Part of the program featuring panels, talks and workshops and the film series “Imagi(ni)ng Otherwise—Counter-Actual Experiments in Resistance and Reclamation,” which in dialogue with the main exhibition was curated by Jessica Edwards, Pola Sieverding and Asya Yaghmurian. Every Sunday at 12pm at the Bambi Filmstudio the screenings present models of cinematic “experiments” in the radical emancipative potentiality of imagi(ni)ng otherwise: disruptions to the recursivity of racialised and gendered global orders of power, contemporary geopolitics, and the implications of their entanglement for the future of the planet. The selected films weave abstract diagrams for imaging the unthinkable, the unrepresentable, the unsayable; for expressing other futurities, and centring those bodies, subjugated voices and experiences either excised from “official history,” or “petrified” within the archive.
June 5, 2022, 12pm: See, We Must…Through the Eyes of the Other
The House Is Black (1962) by Forugh Farrochzād, France/Iran
The Fifth Season (2016) by Shadi Habib Allah, Palestine
For Sama (2019) by Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts, Syria/UK/US
June 6, 2022, 12pm: Escape, We Must…but Remember, We Must
In The Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain (2015) by Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind, PSE
Sankofa (1993) by Haile Gerima, Ethiopia/US, (124 minutes)
June 19, 2022, 12pm: Imagine Otherwise, We Must
Two Minutes to Midnight (2021) by Yael Bartana, Germany/Israel/Netherlands
La Jetée (1962) by Chris Marker, FRA
Pumzi (2009) by Wanuri Kahiu, KEN/ZAF
Afronauts (2014) by Nuotama Frances Bodomo, USA
More information on participants, exhibitions and the program can be found online.
List of participants
Institutions
Akademie-Galerie / Bambi Filmstudio / Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf / Hetjens—Deutsches Keramikmuseum / Hochschule Düsseldorf / Institut Français Düsseldorf / IMAI—Inter Media Art Institute / Julia Stoschek Collection / K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen / Kunstarchiv Kaiserswerth / Kunsthalle Düsseldorf / NRW-Forum Düsseldorf / Polnisches Institut Düsseldorf / Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf
Galleries
boa-basedonart / COSAR / Art Edition Fils—Galerie im stilwerk / Konrad Fischer Galerie / Kadel Willborn / Kunst & Denker Contemporary / Galerie Bernd A. Lausberg / Linn Lühn / Galerie Hans Mayer / Nidus Kosmos / Galerie Ute Parduhn / Galerie Rupert Pfab / Petra Rinck Galerie / SCHÖNEWALD Fine Arts / SETAREH X / Sies + Höke / Galerie Franz Swetec / VAN HORN / wildpalms
Satellite venues and project rooms
Baustelle Schaustelle Düsseldorf / Le Bureau / LA CHAMBRE / darktaxa / NAILS projectroom / NKR—Neuer Kunstraum / Julia Ritterskamp / Ross 31—Räume für die Kunst / SAUVAGE / STUDIO FOR ARTISTIC RESEARCH / the pool / 701 e.V.—KÖ 106
Artistic direction: Rupert Pfab, Ljiljana Radlovic, Thomas W. Rieger and Pola Sieverding.
This year’s edition was realized with the generous support of the Cultural Office of the state capital Düsseldorf, Kunststiftung NRW and NATIONAL-BANK Essen.
