Participating artists announced for 8th Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art

A story within a story…
8th edition of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art 
12 September–22 November 2015

Professional preview: Friday 11 September
Opening: Saturday 12 September

Röda Sten Konsthall
Röda Sten 1
414 51 Göteborg 
Sweden

T +46 (0) 31 12 08 16
[email protected]

www.gibca.se A story within a story…, the 8th edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA), announces its participating artists. 

GIBCA artists 2015
Anna Lundh, Ângela Ferreira, Arvo Leo, benandsebastian, Bouchra Khalili, Carlos Motta, Coco Fusco, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Inmaculada Salinas, Isabel Lewis, Jacob Kirkegaard, Kader Attia, Kerry James Marshall, Leslie Hewitt, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, María Berríos & Jakob Jakobsen, Maryam Jafri, Meleko Mokgosi, Nástio Mosquito, Petra Bauer & Rebecka Katz Thor, Phoebe Boswell, Pia Rönicke, The Propeller Group, Runo Lagomarsino, Sara Jordenö, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Shilpa Gupta, Simon Starling, Theo Eshetu, Tris Vonna Michell, and more to come.

­ A story within a story… is concerned with the possibility of imagining history as a participatory experience. In order to do so, the project will present works that look at history writing by unveiling the grammar of various sociopolitical junctures, rescuing events and their protagonists from historical oblivion and seeking to open up and expand readings of contemporary history. Taking Umberto Eco's notion of the open work as a conceptual backdrop and curatorial methodology, A story within a story… will observe how history makes its subjects throughout multiples devices, questioning whether individuals and communities have the possibility to overcome certain historical narratives and presumptions by making relevant personal narratives, inner worlds, stories and protagonists located within the margins of such narratives. Moreover, the project will explore history as a radical act by focusing on a socially engaged project, House of Words (HoW), which interrogates notions of storytelling, collective memories and "publicness" from transnational and trans-historical perspectives. 

HoW—House of Words
GIBCA and Public Art Agency Sweden / Statens konstråd present the site-specific project House of Words (HoW): a temporary pavilion designed by architect Santiago Cirugeda - Recetas Urbanas and activated by artist Loulou Cherinet. Within HoW Cherinet will devise a relational community project in which a wide range of cross-cultural and multidisciplinary programs will take place. 

Referring to a traditional meeting place common in some African societies, "la Casa de la Palabra," House of Words will operate as a social platform for participatory experiences and storytelling during the course of the biennial. HoW will be built with recycled materials and physically attached to the Röda Sten Konsthall. Its  construction, led by Santiago Cirugeda, will consist of a collective process engaging local communities and individuals from Gothenburg and elsewhere. Cherinet's project will be complemented by a public program curated in collaboration with Elvira Dyangani Ose addressing ideas on how participatory practices may question and create an activated social space where the notion of "publicness" will ultimately be framed through a powerful sense of "togetherness." HoW will be one of the most socially engaged features in the 8th  edition of GIBCA, inviting artists, thinkers and various cultural producers, alongside members of civil society and public authorities, from Scandinavia and across the globe, to partake in various initiatives enquiring the circumstances of radical contingency—sociopolitical, economic and cultural—that are constitutive of our current experience.

About GIBCA
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) is one of the leading Nordic art biennials. Since 2006 the organizer of GIBCA is Röda Sten Konsthall. GIBCA 2015 will host exhibitions and programs at the four venues: Röda Sten Konsthall, Hasselblad Center, Göteborg Konsthall and 3:e Våningen, along with an extended public program and HoW events.

Director: Mia Christersdotter Norman 
Artistic Directors: Stina Edblom and Aukje Lepoutre Ravn
Curator GIBCA 2015: Elvira Dyangani Ose

About Public Art Agency, Sweden
Public Art Agency Sweden explores and develops the relationship between contemporary art and public space. 

Director: Magdalena Malm 
Curator: Edi Muka

Press contact
Linnea Thorén
T +46 (0) 31 12 08 46 / [email protected]