Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Institut für Europäische Ethnologie

Julie Ren

Through an ongoing comparative study of biennials emerges a sensitising scheme about aspirations and elsewheres. Abdoumaliq Simone has written that that “cities are particularly replete with violence of the imagination” and perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than with the proliferation of art events. Taking as starting points the biennials in Gwangju, South Korea, Dakar, Senegal and Taipei, Taiwan, the multiple purposes of these events are considered for the many actors involved. Thinking beyond the Eurocentrism endemic in both urban theory and art history, this research aims to explore a method of relational comparison inspired by Toni Morrison’s affirmation “I stood at the border, stood at the edge and claimed it as central.” In redirecting the flows of art world sycophants on a quest for the next spectacle, in putting new cities on the art calendar, biennials are redrawing the cultural map. They evoke a concept of aspiration that transcends hope and ventures into opportunism, speculation and exploitation, a powerful navigational capacity for those with access.

Anmeldung unter https://www.euroethno.hu-berlin.de/de/veranstaltungen/institutskolloquium/sommersemester-2021/futures-in-of-anthropology