Meet Loulou Cherinet, Magnus Bärtås and Behzad Khosravi Noori from Konstfack at the Venice Biennale

Welcome to:

Microhistories and Accessing Utopia at the Research Pavilion, Sala del Camino, inauguration event 11 May at 1–3.30 pm.

University of Disaster, the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Palazzo Malipiero, official Pavilion Opening 12 May, 6–10pm.

Loulou Cherinet, Professor in Fine Art at Konstfack, participates in an international group show entitled University of Disaster, in the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The project, which in different ways explores the paradoxical virtue of a National Pavilion, is initiated by artist Radenko Milak and curated by Christopher Yggdre, Sinziana Ravini, Anna van der Vliet and Fredrik Svensk in collaboration with Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Mladen Banjac. Cherinet will use the occasion of the exhibition in Venice as a production site for work that will continue to be developed throughout the project including a conference in Venice in November, a publication and an exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska in February 2018.

Magnus Bärtås, Professor in Fine Art at Konstfack, presents his ongoing project Microhistories, funded by Swedish Research Council (between 2013–15). It gathers knowledge from artistic practice/artistic research and the field of history and has resulted in a number of artworks, screenings, seminars and the anthology Microhistories (ed. Magnus Bärtås and Andrej Slávik). The objective is an investigation of how a mutual exchange can come about between the historical perspective/approach used in microhistory, and visual art, especially the video essay genre.

Behzad Khosravi Noori, artist and PhD candidate at Konstfack, presents Accessing Utopia – a multi channel video installation consisting of conversations between young postmigrant Swedish activist, dealing with issues on segregation, racialization and swedishness. In relation to the conversations, it also presents documentation of related installations, events and group activities since 2012. Accessing Utopia examines forms of activist narrativity in relation to performed talk, silence, and listening through the incorporation of space as a key element in the narrative structure. It argues about the intersectionality between micro and macro, individuality, structure and publicity within specific racialized social and political identities. (In collaboration with Rene León-Rosales.)

Konstfack c/o Venice Biennale 2017