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| Wind rose, drawing |
THE WIND OF CHANGE
Between local and global perspectives
By Giacomo Gandola
Today’s global rise of art events goes hand in hand with a shift in the notion of artistic “center” as we were used to. These events often focus on an international audience, overshadowing the relationship between local and national realities.
As a wind rose, biennials will have to see their directions pointing inward since it is the context in which we live that matters. Biennials have to go beyond the exhibition experience and its collateral programs to enact a profound cultural and social renaissance. They have to comply with the display of art in the most engaging ways yet to encourage a fairer model in which local and global coexist.
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| Nathan Coley, A Place Beyond Belief, Installation view at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2018, © Kochi Biennale Foundation |
What could we do? We could learn from biennials in cities such as Kochi and Oslo. The respective Biennales found the right medium between their regional responsiveness and international ambition. By spreading the event across their territories, both Kochi-Muziris and Oslo Biennials created initiatives to engage with their communities. For example, the support to local artists’ production and the integration of art in the public space made art part of the cities’ daily lives. While in India, the biennial helped break some social barriers in a critical neighborhood, in Norway, the display of contemporary art in unconventional spaces fostered unknown areas’ rediscovery.
Time and place are then crucial to see a radical change in biennial-making for contemporary art to be at the core of their plan. Extended biennials, such as longer in time and more expanded across the city, will generate a new way of thinking of art practices and community engagement.
As the wind rose’s mechanism, a fresh wave can represent a meaningful turnaround in the biennial realm. The biennial cardinal points will thus balance the local and global in a fairer, more constructive way.