28.05 – 03.10.2021.
A look back shows the long- term damage in the now. “Active hope” counters the Vienna Biennale and calls for microrevolutions.
„If we love the earth, we must take care of it.“ – sounds like a poster of the Fridays For Future movement. In this specific case, however, it is the core message of the multidisciplinary Vienna Biennale, which asks about the success of the transition from digital modernity to an ecologically and socially sustainable modernity. With numerous art, design an architecture projects Vienna Biennale demonstrates the central role of artists and creatives in this process and makes them visible as visionary designers.
Climate Care instead of Selfcare. Collective we instead of singular me, me, me. Since we have not yet found a planet B, we would do well to find new ways to preserve our habitat. Digital innovation is only useful if it helps us to do so and stops climate change, says Christoph Thun-Hohenstein. He is also the initiating spirit behind the Vienna Biennale, which is the first of its kind to combine art, design and architecture – and also wants to improve the world with its contributions. But how? „It is a particular strength of the arts to address people directly emotionally, to touch them with PLANET LOVE and motivate them to comprehensive climate care. We hope to generate excitement and commitment to an ecologically and socially sustainable future through powerful art installations, clever design processes, earthfriendly architecture, prudent urban and spatial planning, rousing performances, and stimulating discourse programs,“ says the MAK director.
CLIMATE CARE. Let‘s imagine that our planet has a future – this is the title of the central exhibition at the MAK. But how? Optimistically, it looks to the future, inciting microevolutions with art and design that share a common goal: a visionary narrative of a generative future in which we share the planet fairly and sustainably with other species and future generations. „Active Hope,“ one that thrives on passionate engagement, calls for the exhibition to be an inspiring journey of discovery through our lives. The human perception of nature from (an-)organic matter in all its complexity and thereby new forms of coexistence – aside from exploitation – explores Ecologies and Politics of the Living of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
The KUNST HAUS WIEN takes a look into the past with INES DOUJAK. Landscape painting to the theft of land and the loss of biodiver- sity. But what would the MAK be if it didn‘t look ahead: EAT LOVE, together with the „Wirtschaftsagentur Wien“ (Vienna Business Agency), searches for eating spaces of tomorrow, dissects production processes and food cycles, and asks about the vision of urban supply. The process of care, between independence and precarity, was addressed by 11 artists in Foster – The Soil and Water Residency.
Science fiction, climate fiction to be precise, is what Vienna-based artists Kerstin von Gabain and Ivan Pérard make use of. In CLIMATE PANDEMICS. Dark Euphoria, they emotionalize climate change facts as a reflection of the literary genre. The immersive installation INVOCATION FOR HOPE, which Superflux created especially for MAK, invites visitors to immerse themselves in a world in a post- anthropocentric future. Kunsthalle Wien‘s discourse and film program GETTING WET explores how the element of water can reshape our relationships on earth. It questions the extractivist ethics of the present.
PLANET MATTERS, organized by Az W, is a discourse platform that asks for a new attitude of humans towards the planet. Science meets art, design, ecology and economy. A look at the past clarifies the view of the future: the collective we is needed, otherwise the I will be over very quickly.
Vienna Biennale for Change 2021
PLANET LOVE.
Climate protection in the digital age
28.05 – 03.10.2021
www.viennabiennale.org
